Friday, May 28, 2010

The “lumbagometer”

Let me introduce a tool that I've just developed for measuring the evolution of my acute back pain, or lumbago, as they still must call it somewhere in Little Italy. I've came up with the idea because I always end up - as you probably do too - forgetting the negative side of things as well as my occasional physical suffering. Since I have been battling that nasty little injury, I'm trying on a daily basis to pat myself in the back and in the process making a sincere attempt to boost up my morale by gauging my progress.

The problem is that the parameters involved are always shifting at different speeds and it makes it very hard to get a fair idea of the actual result. Since I'm faced with the variability of pain and mobility and that, on day one, these two elements added together created a 100% nasty experience, a full recovery should bring it down to zero. With this in mind, I have generated my first table so you can measure my remarkable recovery after only five days. An update accompanied with some philosophical comments will become available when I reach physical nirvana. Promised!

1 comment:

William Bocq said...

In a previous life, I ferried a number of people wounded or otherwise hurt that, during transport were attended by a medic who also happened to be a shaman and a singer (he is one of the People). While performing with the (then) modern tools of the trade (mainly morphine and crazy glue) he used to ask the patient to rate his pain on a 1 to 10 scale, then at the chosen number, on a 1 to 100 scale, helping him narrow it down very precisely. The goal (he said) was for the wounded to narrow the pain to a definite size, to give it boundaries that made it easier to handle. I must say, it worked most of the time with dramatic results in calming the patient and allowing him to rest more comfortably. It seems to be helping you too.
Get well soon.