Tuesday, September 16, 2008

A Few Thoughts

Firstly, this was an amazing book.  I was a little wary once I got into some of the medical jargon, but even those bits were so interesting I couldn't skip paragraphs.

I had read a V. C. Andrews book regarding a kid who couldn't feel pain, and I thought it was a totally far-out idea.  I definitely didn't think it was an actual condition (congenital analgesia) and I must say it creeps me out.  Especially the bit about these kids later in life - how they eventually can develop the ability to feel pain, and that that type of pain can actually kill.  Death by pain sounds terribly romantic, and I can't imagine this happens a lot - but what a terrifying way to go.

I find it rather interesting when the book touches on pain as it relates to stereotypes.  Women (who sometimes have to go through that whole pesky "childbirth" thing) are seen as "the weaker sex" by many, and apparently many cultures have strange ideas about what kinds of people can "take" pain.  In my experience, it can go many ways.  I think of myself as being kind of a wuss (although - not as wussy as Gigi), but when I cut my thumb wide open with a steak-knife (sorry, Gigi) I had no problem pulling the wound apart to inspect it, clean it, line the pieces up as closely to the original as I could, and wrapping it.  In the book - it was a decorated military man who swooned and fainted at the approach of a sterile needle.  Because pain is so subjective and varied, it seems silly to try an put a label on a group of people as "stoic" or "weak."

I would question the information on page 65, if only from personal experience.  The author claims that statistics would show that men wait and suffer before seeking medical treatment, and that women are much more quick to see a doctor.  In my opinion, there are two types of people who are quick to seek medical attention- those more prone to hypochondria, and those of us who are particularly brave and like to face challenges.  In my experience, most people don't like the idea of having something wrong with them.  I haven't seen any correlation between this and gender.

The description on page 81 of a toothache made me want to cry.  Having my wisdom teeth out was, by far, the most traumatizing experience of my life (at least - of things that happened to my own body).  Pain in the head is just so much more awful than pain in the extremities, in my opinion.  I couldn't escape it.  It wasn't just my body suffering, either.  I was an emotional mess.  I was so messed up from not eating, and then when I tried to eat a few days after the surgery, I ripped apart any healing tissue, and swallowed so much blood that I was up vomiting all night.  That kept me from taking my painkillers, which just compounded the problem.   Have you ever thrown up with a mouth that can only open a centimeter?  Yeah - it was horrifying.  I am sure I will write more about that experience later, so I won't keep boring you now.

"heroine as a particularly powerful narcotic they claimed was free of an addictive potential" - page 112.  Ha.

I love codeine - boy, do I love codeine.

"Gentle Tissue Massage: Delightful" - page 123  (I completely agree.  Go get one done professionally if you never have.  It's LITERALLY like having all the "bad stuff" rubbed right out of your body.)

The placebo response amazes me.  The fact that the brain can do so much about our pain/illness/physical state unconsciously makes me wonder at the incredible machinery that is the body.  Not just humans, either.  Amazing.

When I read on page 150 that doctors thought that infants couldn't feel pain, I wanted to smack 80s doctors upside the head.  What on earth kind of logic is that?  Regardless of the cortex-development - hadn't we learned by the 80s that there is no way that we will ever fully understand the human brain?  Plus - if babies can't feel pain, then why would they cry?  It seems so ridiculous - I had never heard that before.

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