Pain

For some reason I've been super tired all day today.  I got a good amount of sleep.  Maybe I just woke up weirdly.  Thankfully my class got out early because I was struggling through it.   Since hospice is mainly about managing patient's pain, I learned that there are two genes that are responsible for pain.  Small variations in these genes can determine different levels of pain tolerance that individuals have.  Of course, I have no real idea about the science behind that.   When I tried to read up on it later the science talk overwhelmed me.  If I really sat down and focused I could probably make some sense of it but I don't particularly feel like it.

Bizarrely, NPR interviewed a scientist today about our body's electricity.  During it, she also went into the pain genes and receptors.   Two totally different programs about the same issue in the same day.  That kind of thing happens to me from time to time.   She talked about the fact that there are a very small percentage of people out there who can't feel any pain whatsoever (I knew this from a House episode) and there are people who feel pain almost all the time.  It was a fascinating show.  There are obvious reasons for not wanting the hypersensitivity to pain but we forget how helpful pain is to our survival.

Pain is an indicator that something is wrong.  Imagine your appendix bursting and not being able to feel it.  You'd die never knowing anything was wrong.  A simple fall would leave your questioning whether you broke something.   It's really hard to imagine not feeling any pain though.  When your feeling it, I hardly ever think "wow thank goodness I can feel this."   Another strange oddity, the one crime story that bothered me over a year ago complete with kidnapping and torture is on right now.  I haven't seen it since the last time but have thought about it constantly.  It became the "thank God,that didn't happen to me" whenever I had a nightmare or flashback.

Those poor women probably would have loved not feeling the pain.   Still, I suppose you really can't go around wishing your had this weird genetic anomaly on the improbable chance that you will be kidnapped and tortured.  Because these girls were tortured they survived.  If they weren't able to feel the pain, they probably would've been killed immediately.  Yeah, yeah. I know.  Only I would think like this.