Rank your pain on a scale of 1 to 10

    Next to my birth date, medical personnel most often ask me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten. I always stumble answering and have trouble doing this on several levels:

• Why leave out zero as a choice? It should be 0-10. Zero is real. I could have and strive for no - zero - pain.
• What kind of pain are they asking me about? I'm pretty sure they are interested in physical pain. But I want to be a smart ass (as is my way) and ask back if they want to know about my spiritual pain, emotional pain, financial pain (thanks Europe!), marital/relational pain or other "pains" I may have?
• What does #10 physical pain feel like? I believe we each have a different range or spectrum of pain experience and a different tolerance. I've never birthed a child or had a limb severed. I've slept through major surgery. I just know I don't want 10 or 9 or.......
• I have trouble expressing, understanding, knowing feeling. Like other Specks — a family nickname (German origin, pronounced "shpeck", means bacon or fat,) originally given to my uncle Charles Schrag, but spilling over to my dad, Orlando, and now his sons — I have the special talent of not being in touch with my feelings most of the time — including pain. 

    Seriously, I feel quite well. I have occasional dull discomfort in my guts region (is that vague enough) that actually moves around. I've had some chest pain and back pain behind the right shoulder blade. But it's not bad. I usually say "2" on the pain scale. I have taken only two Tylenol since getting out of the hospital Dec. 15 when the pancreas had a hissy fit.

    I do have, however, a generally full, sometimes bloated feeling in the stomach. One of the first clues something was wrong this fall was that beer no longer appealed to me. That is a red flag. It was because the gases in beer only made me feel more bloated. That is a problem. Bottom line: I feel fine physically and I felt I owed it to my blog readers to discuss how I feel. 

    We leave for the Harrisburg PA airport in an hour to fly to Seattle to have a highly anticipated family time with Charles and Anna, who live there, and Adam and fiancée Annie, flying in from Mpls. I hope we can spend the better part of the day as a family in a Verizon store (inside joke, or maybe others with family calling plans can relate). Barb just loves to discuss cell phone plans and equipment. "Speck" skepticism and distrust can reach new levels in a cell phone store. I'll try posting when there. Thanks everyone and Happy New Year.