This post is brought to you by Morphine’s unattractive cousin, Endone and a stingy needle chaser.
So guess where I was yesterday? That’s right. At my new home away from home, where I received quite the upgrade thanks to my frequent flyer points visits.
Yes, I got my own room, in the supply section if you don’t mind, where the softly spoken doctor, the loud, giggly nurse and her offsider, the student nurse, all tried to figure out why my kidneys were still aching like a 7 on a scale of 1- 10.
This whole scale of 1-10 thing intrigued Guns for quite sometime and after the Doc and his posse left the room, he launched into quite the convo about pain thresholds.
“I’m thinking a one is a paper cut” he grinned, obviously so proud of himself for coming up with something that is painful enough to be on a pain scale but not painful enough to require any medical attention.
“And a two would be a paper cut while eating salt and vinegar chips, obviously.”
Obviously.
“What would a five be?” he asked, while looking around the room, as if the medical supplies attached to the wall were somehow going to give him a clue. “Oh,” he said, clicking his fingers, “a five would be stubbing your toe! Because that hurts when you do it, but it doesn’t last for very long.”
“I don’t think they’re really worried about the length of the pain, it’s more the intensity” I chimed in with.
“Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think they cover this in medical school? I bet they do. It’s probably one of their first lectures. How To measure Pain From 1-10 and all these OP 1 kids are sitting there thinking, ‘um hello…a one is a paper cut. I think we can skip this subject'”
“So what’s a 10 then?”
“Getting hit in the nuts” he replied, wincing.
“With what, a cricket ball?”
“OMG don’t. It hurts just thinking about it.”
“What if you don’t have nuts? As in, you’re a female? I feel like you need a gender neutral pain scale.”
“That would have to be giving birth wouldn’t it? Although only females can do that, so it’s not really meeting your strict gender neutral requirements. How about you suggest something?”
“Just quietly, this conversation right now is probably about a 10.”
And with that, the giggly nurse and her sidekick the student nurse arrived with pain relief. Talk about timing.
I was given a tablet of Endone to swallow and then presented with a needle which giggly nurse announced was ‘a bit of a stingy one’ and would I like it in my arm or my leg?
I told her I was a complete needle phob and was this a compulsory situation? She said it wasn’t but I decided to toughen up and told her to jab it wherever she liked. So the leg it was.
Poor old student nurse stood at the end of the bed, while giggly nurse loaded up the needle and Guns held my right hand. I shut my eyes, placed my left hand over my face and wiggled my toes as instructed. The needle went in and I yelped, “Holy crap you weren’t kidding about the stinging part!” before following it up with “Sorry student nurse. I promise not all patients are as high maintenance as me!”
The student nurse laughed, the giggly nurse removed the needle and they both left the room. I flung several f bombs around the room, because that needle HURT and right at that moment the student nurse walked back in to collect a folder.
He looked at me with a smile on his face and said, “Um, has anyone given you the results of your pregnancy test yet?”
“UM, NO. WHY?” I thought I whispered, but apparently I sort of yelled (let’s blame the Endone)
“Oh it was negative. I just wanted to take your mind off the needle for a minute!” laughed the student nurse #missionaccomplished
Pain aside, it was one of the funniest hospital experiences I’ve had in ages. At one point I asked Scott if we were actually on the set of Faulty Towers and despite the doctors not really knowing what is causing the kidney pain, he assured me we were in an actual hospital.
Long story short, the doctors are now thinking the kidney pain is a byproduct of something else, so it’s off to see a specialist today and another one in a couple of weeks. I will keep you posted when I know exactly what’s going on, but for now, The Year Of The Couch continues.
Ever had Endone? Or a paper cut? How do you feel about needles? So many important issues to discuss!
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