Where Mute Memories Start Talking

While browsing through Davidson Library’s insanely large collection of periodicals, I stumbled across an issue of a magazine which had a cover story entitled “Pain and Misery”. At first I thought it was just a recent issue of Rolling Stone dealing with My Chemical Romance’s latest album, but a more thorough investigation revealed that it was a 2002 issue of Reader’s Digest. Intrigued, I decided to find the article and read about this joyous topic.

Magazines can be pretty confusing sometimes, especially in the table of contents. Does anyone else notice that the cover story is always the most difficult article to locate? The contents don’t seem to be ordered chronologically by page number, and they’re often separated by several pages of advertisements. I flipped through the 15 pages of Honda ads and realized that I was still reading the table of contents. More directions to random articles on random pages were presented on pages 16-19, none of which were entitled “Pain and Misery”. Frustrated, I started flipping back through the sophisticated Japanese Car ads in search of the article. Eventually I found an abstract and page numbers, deceivingly hidden amongst cookie recipes and culinary coupons.

The article was basically a simplified discussion of how pain is transmitted through the body via action potentials and neurotransmission, followed by a completely made-up-on-the-spot (i.e. unscientific) hypothesis of how certain drugs combined with mental processes will eventually lead to the ability of humans to consciously control the levels of pain they’re experiencing. Not gonna happen. The end of the written portion of the article dealt with the connection between pain, misery, and depression. Morbid.

Following the article was a little white box with a side-story, which claimed that scientists are able to somehow measure the amount of pain people are experiencing based on neural activity. I could go off on a tangent right now, explaining how experienced pain is actually a combination of physiological, psychological, and cognitive processes, but I’ll spare you. The important thing to realize is that the writers of Reader’s Digest will publish anything that sounds interesting, regardless of its realistic validity.

Supposedly, Reader’s Digest Scientists have “measured” pain in a variety of different conditions, and have come to the conclusion that childbirth is the most painful experience known to human beings. I have a few problems with this conclusion, the first of which deals with the methodology of such research. What exactly are these scientists comparing childbirth to? Did they “measure the amount of pain” in subjects who had just suffered a traumatic injury, such as having a limb hacked off? Most (if not all) people experiencing such an incident would probably not be open to being the subject of a scientific investigation during those moments. Maybe the researchers just asked the standard hospital question of “rate your pain on a scale of 1-10″.

A side story… if you’re ever in the ER after an injury, ALWAYS say that your pain is a 9 or a 10, otherwise they won’t give you enough painkillers. When I broke my upper arm 4 years ago, I told them it was a 7. In retrospect, I really wish my shoulder had been snapped back into place while on a “9″ dose.

Also, that broken arm incident occurred on September 11th. Yes, THE September 11th. Needless to say, I had a pretty hard time feeling sorry for myself. “My arm hurts” didn’t have much efficacy, relatively speaking.

Anyway, back to childbirth. It’s natural. I have a hard time believing childbirth is the most painful experience possible when it carries very minimal psychological torment. In fact, the psychological impacts of childbirth are usually pleasing and exciting. The birth of a child is a pretty joyous occasion. Long story short, there’s nothing “wrong” with a woman going through standard labor. It’s painful, no doubt, and its an experience I’m glad I won’t have to go through, but it sure as hell isn’t the worst thing in the world that can happen to you. Serious injuries are both painful and extremely frightening, which is why those should top the pain list in my opinion. I think the patients at burn centers would agree.

Alright, enough of this. My next blog is going to be about Disney Movies.