Obligatory blog post about pain scores

PTR

So if you had to give your pain a score between 1 and 10, where 10 is the worst pain you've ever had, what would you pain score be right now?

Mrs Lumbago

10

PTR

So this is the worst pain you've ever felt?

Mrs Lumbago

No, it was worse this morning.

PTR

Ok, so if it was 10 out of 10 this morning, what score would you give it now?

Mrs Lumbago

10

PTR

So it's just as bad now as it was this morning?

Mrs Lumbago

No, this morning it was much worse.

PTR

Right. So the pain was at its worst this morning, 10 out of 10.  If 10 is the worst, what's it like now that it's a bit better?

Mrs Lumbago

10

PTR

Excellent. Excellent.

Dream envy

The Hatchling got up from an afternoon snooze the other day and I asked her if she'd had a dream.

"Yes, I had a lovely dream" - what about?

"Fairies." - what colour were they?

"Pink, like a pom-pom" - lovely - what were they doing?

"They were building a statue" - out of what?

"Out of pieces that one of the fairies brought along" - how did you stick the pieces together, with glue or with tape?

"They stuck'ded themselves together, like Lego" - and did you help them?

"Yes I helped because if you were the best friends of the fairies you could help, otherwise you could only watch, like the elves" - were there elves there?

"Yes, they were naughty elves who were slapping and punching each other, but some other elves were good and they help'ded us".

I felt kind of envious after hearing this.  It does sound like a lovely dream.  When I was a kid I mostly had dreams about giant yaks devouring the carpet from under my feet faster than I could run away. Still, it made me the man I am today so I mustn't complain.

Yaaaaaaaak.

Niche talent

All parents consider their own children to be geniuses, presumably as a way of gaining street cred for having the enabling genes to make it possible, despite so blatantly failing to achieve anything in particular themselves.  And I'm no different.

So I was naturally pretty impressed when the Hatchling, newly minted 4 years old, asked us the other day why people at the bottom of the earth don't fall off.

I explained to her, using my best Up-Goer Five talk, that things always fall down, but "down" is not an absolute frame of reference (and I'm clearly paraphrasing myself here) - rather it is relative to the nearest large mass, which in our case is the Earth, so things always fall towards the centre of the Earth, this direction thus being perceived locally as "down".  She took that in her stride and didn't ask any further questions - a clear indication of either:
(a) superior intelligence and innate grasp of Newtonian physics, or
(b) superior intelligence and innate tolerance of my babbling nonsense.
The common thread being superior intelligence, I hasten to remind you.

So I was somewhat put out later that same day when she was attempting to eat a bowl of ice-cream and was dropping the ice-cream all over the floor, the table and herself.  On closer inspection, I realized she was holding the spoon upside-down.

Derr.

When he nerved himself to return...

... the fire had done its work.

Corrosion

You laugh at me when I need help.

You act incredulous that I can't read your mind. 

You make me guess when you know I don't know. 

You answer my question with a question

You question my answer too.

You're too busy for me. 

You've heard more interesting stories far away, in another time. 

You won't meet my eye. 

You wander and hide and make me chase you. 

Your affectation of indolence tells me what I need to know. 

You dismiss me. 

You monitor me. 

You check up on me behind my back. 

You offered, I agreed, but then the offer changed. 

You made me feel like I could do this. 

You stare at me disbelieving. 

You mistrust me. 

You threaten me. 

You tried to take away my options. 

You talk and talk and talk. 

You don't listen. 

You won't listen. 

You don't trust me. 

You brag and strut and pout. 

You grin and smile and act like my friend.

You seize the opportunity to belittle me. 

You assert your dominance. 

Your perception of my admiration is all too wrong. 

You are lazy. 

You make me do your dirty work. 

You mock and boast and preen. 

You trust me. 

You thank me for what I have to give. 

You listen to my opinion. 

You sympathise. 

You make me feel like a human. 

You interrupt. 

You correct. 

You don't listen. 

You look so bored. 

You make your obligations seem like favours. 

Your contempt is showing. 

For the new doctors

A new crop of medical students have radiated, shining forth from the Fine University that I attended, and tomorrow they start work as doctors. This post is just to say to them: good luck. It's going to be an incredibly intense year. You'll learn more in the next year than you have in the last four, and you'll forget almost as much. Nobody who hasn't gone through it themselves will ever really understand how it will change you. 

Work hard. 

Take a break. 

Be interested in people's stories. 

Sleep. 

Read a good book. 

Ask questions. 

This too shall pass.