Fun with the PAIN MEASUREMENT SCALE
Fun is subjective, you know…
So I had a kidney stone.
Perhaps the least enjoyable physical experience of my life, to be perfectly honest. I mean, I once elected to have a lung removed. And then, during my recovery from the lung removal, they had these tubes in my chest cavity just scraping around my insides because I was oozing some sort of lung juice as I sat in a hospital bed for two weeks. It wasn’t fun.
The kidney stone was far worse. Like, holding onto the fence in Terminator 2 during the nuclear explosion worse.
Even so, my favorite part of my kidney stone journey was a trip to the Emergency Room. And it isn’t that I love hospitals so much. Nope. It is that hospitals have something that no one else has - that PAIN MEASUREMENT SCALE with the little faces on it.
Now, as a construct, I love this. I use it all of the time in my house. Headache? Nausea? Bug bite getting itchy? I always ask the same question: What is it, 1-10?
It’s a solid little diagnostic of sorts to help us understand what we’re dealing with in any given situation. So I totally understand why they use it in the hospital. That doesn’t mean that it was particularly helpful for me and the medical staff when I went into the ER last week.
NURSE (pointing to chart): What is your pain level?
ME: Which of those faces best corresponds to the feeling of your internal organs being stabbed repeatedly with a flaming ice pick?
NURSE: Um…
ME: Fourteen.
NURSE: It only goes to ten.
ME: Take the apoplectic ten. Add that slight grimacing four. That’s me. Fourteen.
NURSE: Um…
ME: I’m a ten. And a four. However you want to note that in your chart.
Look, I was making jokes until I couldn’t put words together anymore. I encouraged a couple of the nurses to get an apartment together in between whimpers. I suggested entrance music for the attending ER doctor1. I was a joy. And then the pain skyrocketed into places I didn’t know existed.
So the staff, having used their little chart to properly diagnose my level of distress, started to pump medicine through my IV.
💊 Motrin. No help, obviously.
💊 Morphine. Didn’t even touch the pain.
💊 Dilaudid. Ok…this might be taking the edge off. Wait. Nope. Back to a 10.
What’s the point of all of this? I’m not sure.
What I am sure about is that my family now has a custom PAIN MEASUREMENT SCALE for me. And I would like to share it with you. In the future, you don’t even have to ask me what number I am - just look at the explanations on the scale and pick the one that most clearly applies.
I have it sense it might be universal, so feel free to print it out, put it on your fridge, and alert your loved ones.
I have one reason for supreme confidence in this new scale. I was, after all, present for the birth of my kids. And I’m only now realizing that my kidney stone pain responses corresponded pretty directly with my wife’s responses in the delivery room. So…maybe we’re on to something here, people.
Without further adieu:
*** THE KYLE BURKHOLDER MEMORIAL PAIN MEASUREMENT SCALE ***
1 - Normal human behavior || Everything is basically fine.
2 - Normal human behavior, but with a fly is buzzing around || Everything is fine. Really, it is. Do I look slightly aggravated? Have you seen the fly?
3 - Normal human behavior, but with a wasp buzzing around || The beginning of denial. It doesn’t want to sting us. Just ignore it and it’ll leave.
4 - Still holding onto normalcy, but hints of worry are seeping out || Sliding deeper into denial. Subconsciously touching of the area of pain, eyes narrowing.
5 - Abandoning normalcy, allowing for noticeable grimacing || A major shift - moving from pretending to be fine to pretending to be tough.
6 - Unpleasant but still able to hold conversation || Can no longer fake toughness. And not really trying to be polite anymore, either. Getting down to business.
7 - Meaner, talking in short sentences and only about critical things || Sense of encroaching doom. Mean looks start flying around. “What do you mean I can’t have ice chips?”
8 - All pretense is gone, speech comes like gunshots || Grimacing has given way to whole body spasms, rolling back and forth, cold shakes. “Call. The. Nurse.”
9 - Humanity has largely disappeared, one word answers || Semi-permanent shaking of the head. Shivering or puking from pain. “BACK! NOW! WHY!”
10 - Excruciatingly vacant, entirely unable to speak, eyes closed || Lots of angry swatting. Inarticulate noises. Like trying to treat an angry, feral hog. Traumatic memories for all but the patient.
I had a kidney stone. I hope you never, ever have to deal with one. But if you do - you are now equipped with a chart to guide your medical team. Godspeed!
- KB
His name is Dr. Whitesides - so I was like, “Why don’t you have the staff play Mr. Brightside by The Killers every time you walk in a room for the first time, but you obviously sing ‘I’m Dr. Whitesides!’ a little louder than the music…?” He was not amused.
I've had one before. I was shown and asked the same question. My response was that this was my new 10. I couldn't even tell you what my previous 10 was, but it sure wasn't this. Morphine worked for me. Apparently, according to my wife, I'm a wimp as on the morphine I was a drooling idiot who was barely able to converse or stay awake. She and the nurse giggled at me, or so I was told.
Doesn’t sound like any fun. However, your pain chart did make me laugh.