3. Pain

One of the things you notice if you've got a chronic or serious illness and spend some time in hospitals is that you get the same dozen questions or so from literally everyone you meet. Every nurse, assistant or doctor will ask about falls, medicine, allergies, dutifully note it in the computer, and the next person will ask you the same thing. I know it's an insurance and safety issue, planned redundancy, but it becomes either comical or annoying (depending on one's mood) when you get the same questions over and over again.

The one that gets me, though, is that they ask if you're in any pain. Then they ask you to rate it from 1-10. I was constantly under-bidding on mine, until my wife gave me some frame of reference from when she'd seen me in various pains, and I'm better at it now.

What's kind of weird, though, is that usually the person asking can't actually do anything about it. They don't have pain meds handy, and they're not authorized to dispense them if they did. So all they can do if I say I'm at an eight is make sympathetic noises, which isn't particularly helpful.

Fortunately, my "pain management" is more or less OK. I've been in some pain in the 'ol "bathing suit area" since the surgery, and while, even with my Vicodin/Tylenol blend, it was pretty bad throughout November and December, it's starting to get better.

It does sort of suck to be in constant pain, though, even at low levels. I've got a few things wrong with me that I'd like to go ahead and heal up, and the pain going away is a big one. At this point, it's a constant companion, and part of me feels like it'll be there forever. I can't wait until I'm looking back without pain and just remembering that feeling. Maybe by the end of February or March.