Following years of careful research, Bangkok Pattaya hospital has developed a scientific approach to pain level evaluation. Patients are shown a white card with eight cartoon faces drawn upon it. The first face is a smiley, happy offering with clearly not a care in the world. Face number eight is a weeping, pain-wracked wreck, representing someone who appears to have just lost a limb without the benefit of anesthetic. In between are six faces showing varying levels of pain. Patients are shown the card and asked to choose which face represents their level of pain. Appropriate painkillers are then administered.
As my body felt like it it had been vigorously shaken inside a large tin can (which, in essence, it had) I decided I was unhappy face number six. The nurse selected the appropriate drug for unhappy face number six and it was added to the stream of fluids being fed into my hand.
First sign was a flood of warmth heading up my arm. This warm cloud of comfort then extended across my whole body, lifting me high above the pain into a fuzzy world of floating bliss where I remained for an hour or so. This was my first experience of morphine, and I liked it.
Over the next couple of days the pain subsided, but when the chart was brandished in front of me, I adopted a pained expression and whispered “number six please”. Eventually they decided that I was getting more morphine than was good for me and I was forced to downgrade to slightly upset number three, which was rewarded with a pill of no obvious benefit. My morphine druggy days were over.
But if you ever find yourself in Bangkok Pattaya hospital with a sore throat or a bit of cramp, ask for the chart and point to number six. It’s good shit, man.
Comments 🔗
2008-11-02| Peter Garwood saysWhat I want to know is if you’re as high as a kite on no. 6, which planet you spend a couple of weeks orbiting around if you point at pain-wracked face number 8! :-)
2008-11-03| todd saysi think that smiley system is used in most countries.