Modern Medicine At Its' Best

If you've been to an emergency room in the past five years then you've probably been asked to rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10 by some nurse or doctor. 

I always have trouble answering this question.  If you rate it too low then they think you're wasting their time and will leave you in the waiting room until you've memorized the channel lineup, read all their magazines and made friends with the weird guy with the twitch in the corner.

If you rate it too high, you are a whiny drug addict seeking their next fix.  You're left sitting while they call all the neighboring hospitals to see how many emergency rooms you've hit up lately.  Then you become the person with a twitch that sits in the corner. 

I like to tell them seven and a half.  Slightly above average, but not begging to be hit with a sledgehammer to end my pain. 

It's even worse when they present you with "The Chart".  You may have seen a chart that looks something like this one:
Frankly, the pictures are the worst part of it.  I look at these faces and nothing about my pain is similar.  For instance, according to the chart, my gall bladder pain would have been a 27. 

Here are my thoughts on the misleading pictures:

0 - No Hurt - I don't really know why I'm even here, but it has been a slow day and I really didn't have anything better to do, soooooo....
2 - Hurts a little.  I probably could have solved this problem myself with a pair of tweezers or some duct tape, but I hadn't been in to see the new wallpaper you guys put up.
4 - Hurts little more - Gosh, my stomach is rumbling.  I probably need to grab a burger on my way home.
6 - Hurts even more - Maybe I shouldn't have had that second helping of lasagna.
8 - Hurts whole lot - Maybe the beer pong game last night ran an inning too long after all.
10 - Hurts worst - I have a hangover AND the lasagna is repeating on me.  Also, I have a hangnail that I'm pretty sure is infected.

These pictures just don't do my pain justice. 

Here, with original artwork (TADA!) I have prepared the following for a better understanding of REAL PAIN:

1 - Mrs. Happy Pants - So, then, my aunt's cat, and this is really cute....Oh, wow, look at her shoes!

2 - The Philospher - I don't really know what's wrong with me, but I know what's not right.

3 - Seriously - I'm pretty sure I have a bad case of food poisoning or an alien is trying to break out of my abdominal cavity. 

4 - Dead Serious - An alien has broken through my abdominal cavity and is eating my face.  (Also good for migraines).

5 - Unbearable - Do you see this bone sticking out of my leg?

6 - Future Inmate - No one has to get hurt here.  Just give me my pain shot and I'll answer whatever questions you have.

7 - Kidney Stoner - What do you people want from me?!?!?!?  Can you not see that I'm bleeding from my eyeballs??!?!?!  Shoot me!!!  Shoot me!!!

8 - Natural Childbirth - Look into my eyes....

I think that pretty much sums it up.