People feel pain differently. Over the past three days, I thought about this as I sat in a chair in Mt. Sinai hospital on the Upper East Side. My mother underwent a two-hour surgery and recovered from the eighth floor overlooking 5th Ave. I am thankful she got the window bed, I had a great view to think.
With all the advanced technology that a hospital uses, when it comes to a patient’s pain, they stick to basics. I learned that every patient feels pain differently, even after the same surgical procedure. They believe that a patient’s threshold for pain varies based on culture, sex, history and other various reasons.
Each morning, the nurse came in gauge how much pain my mother felt. The method followed a “pain rating scale,” a universal chart with six faces less detailed than Gchat emoticons. The chart made me laugh; it seemed ridiculous. Based on my mother’s facial expression, the nurses managed the dose of her meds. A chart with six faces, which a kindergartner could draw, determined the dosage of her morphine drip, whether she would get one or two Percocet and if she needed a Valium that day.
With all the advanced technology that a hospital uses, when it comes to a patient’s pain, they stick to basics. I learned that every patient feels pain differently, even after the same surgical procedure. They believe that a patient’s threshold for pain varies based on culture, sex, history and other various reasons.
Each morning, the nurse came in gauge how much pain my mother felt. The method followed a “pain rating scale,” a universal chart with six faces less detailed than Gchat emoticons. The chart made me laugh; it seemed ridiculous. Based on my mother’s facial expression, the nurses managed the dose of her meds. A chart with six faces, which a kindergartner could draw, determined the dosage of her morphine drip, whether she would get one or two Percocet and if she needed a Valium that day.
Pain is hard to see from the outside. Hospitals believe that facial expressions are able to portray the level of pain a person feels, but even they are using an archaic method. I guess it’s the best they can do. What this method does show, is that there isn’t a way to know how much pain a person is expected to feel after a specific operation. The hospital is aware that pain is relative to each patient. All they can do is track the patient’s facial expressions a few times a day to get a feel for how much pain is really there.
Emotional pain is dealt with differently. It is not as simple as a chart with six faces ranging from “no hurt” to “hurts worst.” Still, both types of pain are connected in a sense that both are relative to the patient. The same cause will affect each patient differently.
I wish I realized this a year ago.
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