Doggydad's life now: The Viral Monologues: Pity, Party of One

I'm going to have a little whine with my cheese tonight. I'm warning you, only because if you know me well, you know that I'm not a huge complainer, especially about physical pain. I have a very high threshold, especially for a man. So that sounded a bit sexist, but I'm going to expound: the vast majority of the time, it's been my experience that women have a much higher pain tolerance. Let's say it's at least a statistically significant difference, in my experience, and this isn't just coming out of left field. I was a practicing Registered Nurse until 1995, and before that, I had spent most of my adult life working in health care, doing direct patient care jobs (i.e., nursing assistant). I've taken care of a lot of patients (and friends) in unbelievable pain, and I'll say it again: in general I've found that women tend to have a higher tolerance for pain than men. Of course there are exceptions but...anyway, you get where I'm going, right?

Before I go any further, let me give one more piece of setup information: I'm klutzy and very accident prone. Nothing life threatening, but there have definitely been some real doozies where I've messed myself up pretty good. I've often joked with close friends about my pain tolerance. It invariably ends up with some story like "remember when you gashed your head open on the cupboard door corner and stood there laughing your butt off as your forehead was gushing blood?" Laughing at pain is recurring theme if you know me. When I stub a toe so hard I break it, bang my head into a sharp corner, or slip and fall and crack my tailbone, you'll likely find me in a fit of giggles.

It's always been that way. I still remember being 10 (it was 1970), my Mom had just married her 2nd (and last) husband and we were getting into his brand new Cadillac Sedan de Ville (and he got a new one every year) I was getting into the back seat and had my hand still partly in the doorway as my Mom slammed it shut onto 3 of my fingertips. I don't know if you ever closed a door on a 1970 Cadillac, but it's like a tank. There I was, sitting in the backseat, tears running down my face and laughing and crying at the same time. I lost 2 of the 3 fingernails. If you've ever done that you know the kind of pain I'm talking about. This characteristic started young with me, and it's never changed. I'll do something gruesome looking and horribly painful and start giggling. Then I'll see the horrified look on the face of a friend or other onlooker and that will turn it into full on yuk-yuks.

Another of my interesting quirks in regard to this general subject is my occasional chuckle when somebody injures themselves. Yes I do have a bit of schadenfreude in my personality. I justify it by saying that I see no more humor when somebody injures themselves than I experience when I am both the perpetrator and the victim. Unfortunately, that doesn't make it any less shocking to some innocent bystander. Let me also offer one other (possibly lame) qualifier: I don't do this when it is somebody who is disabled, elderly, or otherwise physically impaired. I do have a conscience, after all. I also can reign this in if this is a really serious situation.

I'm talking more about the guy walking down the street, texting, and oblivious to his surroundings who walks straight into a light pole. Or someone stinking drunk at a beach party who decides to get up and go to the beach house for a bit, then, as she gets up and starts her trip, she walks straight into a palm tree. And then apologizes to the tree. If the last one sounds a bit too specific, it's because I actually witnessed this happen years ago when vacationing in the British Virgin Islands. I thought I was going to pee myself. Or somebody getting into a hammock for the first time, and ending up face down in the lawn underneath the hammock.

I've made my point. In truth, I've probably overstated my point, but if you've been following my adventure in journaling, you'll find a few recurring themes: verbosity, too much information, wild tangents, an occasion lapse into hyperbole and redundancy. And redundancy. But back to the happy subject of pain. As much as I've tried to drill in the point that I'm not a sissy with pain, I have to admit it: I'm hurting now, and it's something so stupid, but so painful that I can't think of much of anything else.

I'm sitting here now with a tongue that is covered in aphthous ulcers, aka canker sores. They nearly completely ring the edge of my tongue, plus they cover the lion's share of the upper surface on my tongue. I'm sure pretty much everyone that is reading this has had an aphthous ulcer at some point in their life. Knowing how painful one is, imagine having them basically coating your tongue.

Eating is torturous. I love food, and more specifically, I love hot, spicy, tangy, sour food. I like intense flavors, but eating those right now is absolute insanity. I was trying to have a bit of ice cream this evening, and I swear to god, it felt like I was trying to eat a jellyfish. I am miserable, bitchy, grouchy and just generally unpleasant to be around. Thank God I live alone, I would feel sorry for anybody who had to deal with me for an extended period of time right now. I actually have an out of town visitor right now; Laurie, a very good friend from college, and all I can say is "thank God it's Laurie". She gets me and she intuitively knows the best way to deal with me when I'm in pain: leave me the hell alone. I don't want to be doted on, I don't want to be felt sorry for, I just want to be left alone. If I need something, I'll let you know, but other than that, just steer a clear path around me, lest you get your head unmercifully and undeservedly bitten off. I usually won't cry or whine when I'm in this place, but I'll be miserable company to be sure.

Not so this time, kemosabe. I am whiny, pitiful and just generally unpleasant to be around. I am complaining about the pain constantly, and every time that I irritate one or more of the sores, which takes nearly nothing to do, I moan and nearly cry. Irritating it pretty much takes almost nothing. Running my tongue along my teeth is like licking barbed wire. Brushing my teeth feels like I have Draino on my toothbrush. About the only thing that I've found to be fairly innocuous is drinking warm water. You can forget warm salt water gargles. Think about the cliche phrase "rubbing salt in the wound". That is what salt water feels like. Add to this list vinegar, acid foods, spicy hot food, hot (temperature) food, cold food, juices, cheeses, sweets anything with a texture to it. Basically, there isn't anything I can do to ramp down the pain, aside from keeping my tongue perfectly still, my mouth closed and bereft of food or drink.

This is insanity. More accurately, this is the kind of torture that can drive one insane. In gory movies, I've always squirmed out of my skin if somebody's tongue gets ripped out with a big scary set of forceps. Right now, I would almost pay to have my tongue ripped out. Almost.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this down, unless it is just to vent it in a civilized manner. There is nothing anyone can do. I don't have a doctor's appointment until next week, and I'm not about to go to the ER for this. Being an RN, I know how retarded that would be. Every night as of late I've been going to sleep praying that I'll wake up in the morning with a pain-free, ulcer-free tongue. So far, no luck. I don't think God really cares about tongues, and I believe that I just need to deal with this, ride it out, and do what I can to minimize the irritation. I think the only way to get rid of it completely would have to be a drug-induced coma about now.

This has been going on for 3+ weeks now. Prior to this event, I've had one or two ulcer here and there on a rare occasion, but this is ridiculous. Seriously ridiculous. And I am so over it. But I can't do diddly squat about it, so as usual, it's time to buck up and be British. Yeah, it's gruesome, but hardly like writhing in pain from pancreatitis or a kidney stone. Again, I could be wrong. All pain is individual and relative. Maybe I need to let up on myself; I've always been able to do this before. Right now, it seems like an implausible venture. What to do, what to do, what to do.

It's 2am and I'm going to sleep now, hopefully. Once again, I'm praying and bargaining with myself, saying "I'll do anything, please make this stop". Again, I personally think that this isn't something on God's radar screen. There's an entire universe to look over, after all. Just grow up man, and quit being such a big baby. To the rest of you, sleep tight and be well.