Tuesday musings

When I was studying nursing, we were distinctly told – and reminded frequently – that we weren’t to use the word “pain” when speaking with patients. We were to say “discomfort.”

So, if we had a patient fresh out of surgery, instead of asking, “do you have any pain Mr. Jones?”, we would have to say, “Are you experiencing any discomfort Mr. Jones?” The instructors told us it was to prevent putting any ideas of pain into a patients head and that the word “pain” had a negative connotation to it, while “discomfort” was less negative.

Huh? I’m sorry (actually, no I’m not!), but if I’m having a tremendous amount of pain, the last thing I want is to have a nurse asking me if I’m having any
discomfort. I can tell you, I’d probably not be too nice with my answer.

Seriously, let’s call pain what it is. Pain. Chronic, acute, severe, moderate, whatever. It’s pain. Nothing else.

I’ve been pretty busy the past few weeks, putting together Womb Within, working on this blog and doing my other clients’ work. One thing I noticed is that being so busy, my pain tends to come back as I’m not as careful as I might be when I have time to think about it. Is it just me that does that or do others too?

I have to have three of my wisdom teeth out in a couple of weeks. I’m not looking forward to it. I know that many people have no problems at all, but others do. And, my oral surgeon said that people over 35 years old can have more complications than younger victims patients. So, come the 18th, you may hear an awful lot of whining from me. If so, please bear with me!

Is there anything in particular that you’d like to talk about? Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts in the comments section.

Image: iStock

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