Paingod

This blog post is inspired by another recent post (well, at this point, sort-of recent) by Madame Weebles.  Visit it and understand the pain she experienced in memorializing her cat, Pickles.  Awesome ink, by the way.  Anyway, in the commentary orgy that followed I nearly took over the poor woman’s post, so I elected to refrain from being a tool and do this post instead.

The idea today, Gentle Readers, is to describe my most painful events in life.  By this, I mean physical pain only.  I’m not going to bore you with tales of heartbreak as a nerdy kid that even pimply fat chicks wouldn’t date as a teenager.  No, this is about the Paingod, as I call her, and her workings in life… my life in particular.  Paingod is unforgiving, but Paingod is fair.  She knows of my high tolerance…  I’ll use Weebs’ Improved Pain Rating Scale (WIPRS) to reference here:

My earliest introduction to Paingod was at age seven.  I wrecked my bike and somehow gashed an inch-deep cut in my left shin, just under my knee.  This totally disrupted my family’s Sunday routine, and to be honest I didn’t feel much pain until the ER intern started suturing my stupid ass up.  To this day, I can hardly find the scar.  Remembering, I’d rate this as somewhere between 3 and 4 on the WIPRS, mainly due to seeing the inside of my leg and the nasty feel of the tensioned catgut being pulled through my flesh as I was repaired.

Track season of my high school freshman year gave me a just-this-side-of-torn quadricep (big’n in your thigh) doing a long jump warmup.  This just fucking hurt, and what was worse, I heard the tendon hyperextend.  This one gets a WIPRS score of 3 but with an ‘angry’ face too, because I missed three meets after that one.

Next, I’ll offer broken ribs.  I was 19 and playing a pick-up game of “touch” football at the junior college I used to springboard myself into my college of choice.  I got the first down and a sudden inablility to breathe.  I asked for a pause, recovered, and finished the game.  The ribs remained there like a cluster of rusty nails in my back for a month.  This one gets a WIPRS of 5.

Then there was the burning cinder that lodged in my eye as a Lieutenant doing fire-fighting work on a gunnery range.  Got me to the ER again, and no real harm, but holy-motherfuck-Paingod-its-my-eyeball-with-a-whole-flaming-Sequoia-in-it.  This gets a WIPRS of 3.

Once, when my awesome college-bound boy was 4, I stepped on his Lego piece.  On linoleum.  Paingod is cruel, and this WIPRS is a 5.  No fucking joke.  Paingod invented Legos.

Ever had your diaphragm cramp?  I blame the self-healed broke ribs, and every time that grabs, Paingod gives me a WIPRS experience in the 4 to 5 range, then allows me to breathe again.

My occasional migraines: WIPRS between 4 and 5, while I listen to Paingod’s radio play in my explody head.

The ultimate punishment Paingod ever gave me, and I have to assume this was for consuming live infants while punching cute puppies in a former life, happened in Afghanistan on my first sabbatical.  I was the gunner on an MRAP equipped with a Mark-19 grenade launcher (think: 5 hand grenades landing on your nuts every second).  I loaded the weapon as I knew how, and then managed to slam the feed-tray cover (a heavy, unforgiving, spring-loaded plate of cold steel) on. my. motherfucking. thumb.

Paingod smiled, Rants nearly passed out.  This had to be like all women’s childbirth crammed into the last joint of my thumb.  My right thumb, of course, being right-handed.  But Paingod knew that, of course.  Did you know that only the genitals and lips on the human body have more nerve endings?  True, and I am so glad my junk wasn’t caught in the launcher.  No shit, my vision dimmed and shrunk to a tiny circle.

When the mission was over, I cleaned off the blood and later had to drill a hole in my thumbnail with my buck knife to relieve the blood blister pressure.  Then the thumbnail fell off, and for the next three months, I kept the fucking thing superglued to myself.  Final WIPRS rating: The Shining Lady.

The Paingod is unforgiving.

The Paingod is fair.