One of the things I used to try to avoid, if at all possible, was being admitted to the hospital on the last day of the month. I hated that. Actually, I wasn’t a huge fan of the place on any day and tried to avoid being admitted at all, but the last day of the month was the worst because of the hospital’s staff rotation schedule.
Just about everyone whose lab coat was knee-length or shorter moved to a different department on the first day of the month. When I was still young enough to be on the pediatric service, you could count on having five complete physicals and histories taken when you were admitted, not counting whatever happened in the emergency room.
There would be a couple of students, an intern, a first-year resident and a second- or third-year resident. For reasons that were never adequately explained—they would usually mumble something about the education process—each doctor, or student, had to get your history and give you a physical individually. I was all for fostering an atmosphere of cooperation and teamwork, but the 1950s were an age of the rugged individualist.
They would usually start by getting your history. You had to go over your family tree; recount just why your parents suspected you might have a bleeding problem; who had diagnosed you; when, where, what cologne they used; what had or had not caused this particular hemorrhage; how many times it had happened before; and about 200 other questions. And you got to do it five times.
Then each doctor, or student, would give you a physical examination. It would usually start with the normal stuff—checking your blood pressure and pulse, shining a klieg light in your eyes while you stared at a spot somewhere behind their head—but would eventually get around to the reason you were there.
With varying degrees of clumsiness, they would poke and prod whatever was bleeding and then see just how much you could flex or extend the appendage in question. It could take until well into the evening for all five of them to conclude you probably were hemorrhaging, and if you had been reasonably comfortable (i.e., not rocking back and forth because of the pain) at the beginning, you could count on someone along the way putting a stop to that.
If you were admitted on the last day of the month, especially late in the day, you got to do it all again the next day when the new guys came on board. Believe me, there is nothing like having 10 people check just how much your leg won’t bend to take the glamour out of a knee bleed. (Don’t even get me started on the time all 10 needed to do a rather invasive examination of my bum.)
I Can Imagine Pretty Bad Pain
The one thing that would not be brought up during all the poking, prodding and questioning was how painful it was. To be sure, they would ask if it hurt and you would say “yes,” and then they would move on. It was the 1950s, and real men didn’t talk about their feelings, especially pain. You didn’t see Gary Cooper or John Wayne complaining when they got shot, did you? Things are, of course, much different now.
When I’m admitted to the hospital now, I’ll get checked over by a first-year resident—interns seem to have disappeared—and they’ll take a brief history. The major change, however, is the attitude toward pain. Not only do they want to know if I am in pain, they want to know how much there is and how I feel about it. As a result, I can count on just about everyone who comes in my room, with the possible exception of housekeeping and the cafeteria staff, to ask me the question I have come to dread most: “On a scale from 1 to 10—1 being no pain at all and 10 being the worst pain you can imagine—how would you rate your pain?”
I hate that question, mostly because I don’t know how to answer it. Like most people, the worst pain I can imagine is pretty much linked to the worst pain I’ve experienced, and the worst pain I’ve experienced was bad enough my brain said it was not in its job description and shut down for a couple of weeks. If that’s a 10, what’s a 5? A root canal with no Novocain?
The bleed of the moment hurts like the devil, so it could be an 8 or 9. But it’s only half as bad as an arm bleed I had once, so maybe it’s only a 4 or a 5, and it’s nowhere near that kidney hemorrhage that knocked me out, so maybe it’s really only a 2 or 3. I don’t know what to say. It’s not even close to the worst I can imagine, but I still wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even my old Middle English professor.
Eventually my internal debate lasts long enough that the person who asked me gets bored and leaves, making a note in my chart that “the patient is unresponsive.” If my wife is there, she’ll step in and tell them that I’m in a lot of pain and to give me something for it. While they are gone she’ll ask me why I can’t just answer the [expletive deleted] question, and I’ll try to explain about that “worst you can imagine” part. I’m like Han Solo when he’s told his reward will be more riches than he can imagine—I can imagine a lot.
My solution is to replace “worst you can imagine” with “the most you can tolerate.” That way you are just determining how uncomfortable it is at the moment, and literal types like me won’t get hung up reconciling the current pain’s position relative to all the others. After all, if one end of your scale is based on what a person can conceptualize, perhaps it’s not the best scale for someone with a vivid imagination and a lot of experience.
Read more Guy Boss at the Missing Factor.