Inspirational Parenting: ideas stemmed from Dinty W. Moore's "Son of Mr. Green Jeans"

Last week in English, we read an essay called “Son of Mr. Green Jeans” by Dinty W. Moore. This essay, in short, is about a man, reflecting on his youth. Specifically his relationship with his father, and how it was strained, as well as remembering how he used to watch television and wish some of the TV dads were his dad. Nearing the end he discusses how he thinks fatherhood should be, as well as how he fathers his own child. So, I am asked who or what is the most influential person or thing in my life? The one moment that has inspired me and pushed me to become the person I am today? What a difficult question to answer. There are multiple things that I feel have brought me to where I am today. Among crowning achievements and crushing disappointments, there is someone who stands out more than anything: my mother.

My mom, Cindy, has always been so kind and loving. I could be failing at something, but she still thinks I am great. I now know that when I was a child, we did not have much money, in fact, we were verging on poor…but I didn’t know it at the time. My mom did everything she could to hide that from my sister and me; so that we didn’t feel ‘different’ from other kids at school. She would take us to the mall to buy clothes and take us out to eat. She gave us a totally normal childhood, regardless of the financial ability of my family. I also remember, middle school, when my mom’s car got repossessed, we had to drive all the way to Evansville, Indiana to get it back. We just thought we were having a summer road trip, we did not know that our parents did not have enough money to pay their bills.

She bought my sister and me $300 prom dresses (twice!), when we definitely didn't have the money. She provided us with everything we ever wanted or dreamed of. In high school, and college, nothing changed for me, in fact we were best friends at times. I drove my parent’s car, they paid for my gas, paid for my cell phone, and I didn't have any bills. I had a relaxing and stress-free childhood, even early adulthood. I didn't start paying my bills until I was 23, and not because I had to, but because I wanted to: I had a great paying job with my own benefits.

After I started my nursing career, I lived with my parents for nearly two years. When I was too tired to drive home from work, I could call her before she goes to work, to ask her for a ride home, I would know, without a doubt, that she would drive the 40 miles (one way) to come get me, no matter when or no matter how far the trip. When my grandma was hospitalized, she took off work, and visited during the day and stayed every night. She did the same thing when my grandpa on my dad’s side was sick and in the hospital: she took off work and visited every day, for long periods of time, because the rest of his family lives out of state.  

Why is this so remarkable to me, when what I just explained is everything a mother should do for their child? I find her to be inspirational, because, my mom IS the perfect definition of a mom, and that is what makes her great. When she was my age, she aspired to be just like her mother, and when it is time for me to become a mother, I aspire to be like my mother. She has taught me to love everyone and to be patient and kind, and help everyone when I can. She taught me to be giving and a little mysterious, live for today, not for tomorrow. All of these things have influenced me to become a nurse. That has made me a better person and nurse.  Kids only get one mom, and they can’t ever change or upgrade; so I am blessed to have gotten such a good one. 

Ryan Van Meter's "If You Knew Then What I Know Now" : Bullying Dillema

The Short essay “If You Knew Then What I Know Now” by Ryan Van Meter is a first-hand account about a bullying experience in the sixth grade. Ryan has to go over to one of his classmate’s houses to do a school project. When Ryan arrives, he finds that his classmates have plotted to make fun of him. Immediately upon walking into the bedroom, he finds two boys in his class “making out”. They are kissing with their hand in between their mouths, they pretend to be surprised when he walks into the room and one of them says, “Ryan, you like to kiss boys right?”. They assume he is gay because, in the essay he describes that he feels awkward being friends with boys his own age and only is friends with girls. He is trying to hang out with boys his age, he is feeling pressures from society and peer groups to be “normal”, and have friends of the same sex, he also describes that his mother is also pressuring him to get more friends who are boys.

                Clearly, the societal pressures and family pressures did not work in his advantage, as he was bullied when he did try to hang out with classmates outside of school. And it turns out later in life, Ryan is gay. This “kiss” he saw, stays with him forever. Every time he sees a kiss, kisses his boyfriend and thinks about kissing he pictures this “fake bully kiss”. This “kiss” has obviously severely affected the way he thinks, and as a snowball effect, it has skewed his relationships and potential future relationships.

                If I were Ryan’s sixth grade guidance counselor, what would I have told him? How would we have nipped this in the bud before it escalated to the point where it is currently? The point that it is completely eating him up inside for years after the fact. If I were his counselor (let’s assume, for the sake of this argument, he told his parents and they called the counselor). First, I would not get the bullies involved. I feel that the more the bullying is talked about, the more the victim will dwell on it, thus making the issue worse. To make the student feel like they are not alone in being bullied. Though it may be unprofessional, I would share my own bullying experiences to make them trust me. Open lines of trust are crucial in any kind of relationship. It does not matter if it is a school relationship, a working relationship, a family relationship or a friend relationship, trust is critical!

 I would then ask him if he has any close friends he feels more comfortable talking with, or set them up with a peer who has had a similar experience, and they can offer tips on how they overcame how they were bullied. A thing that would be beneficial for schools to implement would be a voluntary program, where students who have been bullied join this group. They would meet on a scheduled basis, and discuss tips and ways to overcome bullying and prevent bullying in the future. The last thing a sixth grader wants is an adult trying to help them to conform and be normal, just like everyone else. At that age, it is important to discover their own identity. The less this topic is interfered with as an adult, the better. The reasoning for this thought is because kids don’t want adults in their own business. At this stage of development, preadolescents are trying to establish their place in the world, trying to find their social group. They are trying to define themselves, and figure out who they are; this includes maybe beginning to think about their sexuality.

This is a great plan to try to solve Ryan’s dilemma. Why? Personally, I have been bullied by friends and I have been the bully. I remember in high school, my mom called my guidance counselor and she called the bully and me into her office to ‘talk it out’. This “supervised talking it out” I experienced created more tension that anything. And I dwelled on that destroyed friendship until I graduated. I completely wasted the remainder of my high school career, looking back, it could have been better and I could have made the best out of the remainder of high school. Instead I dwelled on the fact that I had lost some friends because of the tension created by bullying. If there was a counselor who did things differently, I feel that things could have ended differently. I also wish there was a ‘bullied group’ that I could have participated in. Airing out problems with peers who have had the same experiences somehow seems to validate the anxieties and fears and problems that some are experiencing.

                                                           References

 Van Meter, R. (2005). If You Knew Then What I Know Now. In Williford, L and Martrone, M (Eds.), Touchstone anthology of contemporary and creative nonfiction: Work from 1970 to present (pp. 520-524).  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.

A Vote For Reason and Escaping One's Own Shadow: compare and contrast rhetorical strategies

     After reading both of the essays: A Vote for Reason and Escaping One's Own Shadow, I feel that both authors have good rhetorical strategies. Both authors use Ethos, Pathos, and Logos when trying to convince their readers that their way of thinking is the best way of thinking. Ethos is the author's credibility; pathos is pulling at the emotion of the readers to get the audience to take the author's side of the argument. Finally Logos is logic-the author uses logic and reason as well as research to educate the reader of their argument as a final attempt to get the reader to accept their views.

     A Vote for Reason: by Michael Lynch, in my opinion, is a difficult article to read. This article is all about rhetorical strategies and how politicians use rhetorical strategies to try to convince the people to vote for them in the election. Such as, in his opening paragraph he states "What if I offer to drop a drug into the water supply that would cause everyone to vote the way you do this November, you would probably feel at least a bit tempted to take the deal" (Lynch 2012). Personally, I would not take the deal. Yes, I vote, and no, I do not feel it is a life or death fight that some people do believe it is. Further on in the article Lynch mentions that "To engage in democratic politics, means seeing your fellow citizens as equal autonomous agents capable of making up their own minds" (Lynch 2012). I also feel that this is a fallacy, considering this is a presidential election year, anyone who watches TV, reads the newspaper or listens to the radio are constantly bombarded with political campaigns, usually negative slander, trying to convince the people that one person is wrong. Trying to convince us that their opponent is not a good candidate, they are a liar and a big spender who is not going to help the economy. So, I think that people who participate in politics do not consider us their equals; it always seems as if they are talking down on us, thinking we are stupid enough to believe these negative advertisements.

     This article is not just about voting and elections; it is an article about reason. This, again, pulls us back to rhetorical strategies. Another article I found online, states that "A Vote For Reason comes at a time when advertising wants us to abandon reason and accept their version of reality, and a time when the future leader of our great empire is being sold to us as a product " (Schwartz 2012).  I believe this is a true statement...not only in politics, but in everyday life. We turn on the TV in the middle of the night, and what is on? All infomercials, which are trying to sell us their product that will miraculously make our lives easier and perfect.  Even political things, are all about advertising. The product they are selling is themselves. They are trying to make them seem like the best choice, over the cheaper, generic brand represented by their competition.

Rhetorical strategies used by Lynch are logos, he does extensive research with theorists, scientists and psychologists and confirms his ideas by using quotations from these people that back up his way of thinking. Ethos- he is a NY Times published author who seems knowledgeable about the ways that politics and politicians use rhetorical strategies and other ways they use to get voters to see their way of thinking.

     On the complete opposite end of thinking about reasoning, there is the article Escaping One's Own Shadow: by Michael Erard. Erard is trying to convince us that basically, the more writing you do, the better you get at writing. Regardless if it is writing a boring research paper or if it is writing the next new and hot novel. To put my two cents in, I think it is the same with reading. The more you read the better you get at it, as well as the better you will write. This is true because every time you read something like a scientific journal  article about the way bodies work on the cellular level, to reading 50 Shades of Grey to reading the latest issue of Vogue, even Facebook and Twitter feeds; you learn different styles of writing, thus improving the readers writing and reading skills. Like Erard says "I'm a dancer who walks for a living" (Erard 2012). Basically saying, he is a writer who writes boring things for his job (or as he says 'less juicy') than the things he likes to write in his everyday life. Is this why throughout school, as long as I can remember, we have been forced to read and test on 'required reading'? So that we can develop our own style of writing and find out what we like to read. No matter how much you like to write, you must get used to the fact that writing is part of everyday life. No matter what type of job you do, you will be writing at some time, and if not writing, you will be speaking to other people, and you don't want to sound like you do not know how to form a basic sentence, do you? The very first tip on this online newspaper article about how to improve your writing is "good news, writing makes you a better writer" (Jaksch 2010).

     Immediately upon opening the article, Erard establishes his Ethos by stating “before we get started, there is something you should know about me. I've written news articles, essays, reviews and a couple of non-fiction books" (Erard 2012) He is credible that he knows about writing because he is a professional writer, as well as being a published NY Times author. He establishes his Logos by writing in a logical and flowing format that makes it easy to read, as well as interviewing different people who are expert writers. As well as using Pathos to almost make you feel sorry for him, as he cannot write the way he dreams about writing, it appears he is trapped in this bubble of writing for his job, that he hates; but is somehow thankful for all of the practice writing he gets.

So who did a better job at getting me, the reader to take on their views and accept them as my own? Michael Erard, in Escaping One's Own Shadow. It could be that I am biased, I have always believed that writing and reading and even speaking properly helps to improve your writing skills. When you are introduced to new styles of writing in doing different types of reading, you are expanding your knowledge, and thus help to broaden the vocabulary, which will improve both your speaking ability and your writing skills. I also think politics are boring and reading about them and how they crudely attempt to convince us that they are the right choice, is even more boring.

References

Erard, M. 2012. Escaping one's own shadow. NY Times Opinionator. Retrieved from:

     http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/escaping-ones-own-shadow-in-writing/

Jaksch, M. 2010. Writer Wednesday: 73 ways to improve your writing. Huff Post Books. Retrieved from:

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/21/writer-wednesday-73-ways_n_651065.html

Lynch, M. 2012. A vote for reason. NY Times Opinionator. Retrieved from:

     http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/hope-for-reason/

Schwartz, S. 2012. A vote for reason-The stone. OpEdNews. Retrieved from:

     http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/A-Vote-for-Reason--THE-ST-in-Best_Web_OpEds-121001-

     170.html

"Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace

   The essay "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace, is a very well written article, about the inhumanities involved in eating that big, delicious, butter soaked piece of lobster that many people consider a delicacy. Wallace's audience is the readers of Gourmet magazine, 'foodies' if you will, who likely do not think twice about the food they are putting into their mouths. In his very educational story, he discusses everything from how the lobster is baited and harvested, how they are stored in the supermarket, and eventually the cruel ways in which the lobsters are cooked and eventually consumed.

     Wallace establishes his credibility, or ethos as a writer, by doing extensive amounts of research as well as some scientific research, including the depth at which lobsters are caught in the ocean, how the lobster's 'brain' works and even stating specific details about the large well-known and highly acclaimed Maine Lobster Festival (which Wallace considers comparable to a Roman circus or a medieval torture-fest), which is a festival dedicated to everything lobster; including the highly anticipated eating of the lobster.

     Logos is established by, again, the research he put into doing this essay. He displays it in a way that helps the reader to very easily understand and identify with his findings, and therefore understand his argument. For example, he very scientifically puts into words the way the lobster's body works on a cellular level, and explaining the lobster’s brain chemicals, and telling the reader that, since the lobster does not have a centralized nervous system they can feel pain, but their body cannot interpret the pain. As well as explaining that the lobsters migrate with changing water temperatures, and because they have highly developed hairs covering their body, and they can sense heat very easily. The question he presents is how, if the lobster is highly sensitive to temperature, is it humane to boil them until death, just so that they can be enjoyed by the human palate.

     The author establishes his pathos by appealing to the reader's emotion, by vividly describing the actions of the lobster when they are handed their fate by a human, who is placing them into a pot of boiling water. He explains how the lobsters grab onto the side of their holding container as they are being dumped into the pot of boiling water. They clink and scratch their claws on the lid of the vat of boiling water, appearing desperate to escape. Also, he points out that some people mistakenly put the lobsters in non-saltwater, therefore smothering the lobster to death; as it’s body cannot breathe in freshwater. He also describes how humans are trying to be more humane in how they kill, cook and prepare the lobster, such as stabbing them in the 'brain' with a knife, hoping to give the lobster a more merciful death. However, majority of a lobster's nerve bundles are "on the underside, from stem to stern, and disabling only the frontal ganglion does not normally result in a quick death or unconsciousness" (p 537). As well people who think that it would 'hurt' the lobster less if they would put it into cold water and slowly bring it to a boil, as their body would adjust to the temperature as it increases to the eventual 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Which, unfortunately, is not a humane way to cook the lobster either, as with this method of cooking lobster, the chef sees a “bonus set of convulsion like reactions that you don’t see in regular boiling” (p 237)?

     The message? Simply think about the food you are putting in your mouth, because it was, at one point in time, a living breathing creature.  All Wallace asks in his essay is for people to think about what you are about to eat; before you put their flesh into your mouth. He is not trying to convince the readers to become a vegetarian, vegan or even an advocate for People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). His arguments are, in my opinion, very effective. He convinced me to do more than to think about the way lobsters are prepared before eating it, he also convinced me to not want to eat lobster at all.  I believe that they are very inhumanely killed/prepared. My dad is a hunter and has always butchered his kills. I grew up with eating, harvesting and killing animals as being a normal part of life. It was a necessity, a way to cheaply feed the family. Just as many states, including the gulf states who harvest shrimp and many other sea creatures to eat and even alligators to sell their skins and their meat, they do it to make a living. What's the difference between sea creatures and eating deer, pork or beef? Lobsters, as discussed above, are inhumanely prepared and killed, whereas deer, cattle and hogs are killed with a .22 in between the eyes. Mammals have a centralized nervous system, much like our own; getting shot point-blank in the head gives the animal a very quick death. Still painful, but the pain is so quick, and it is over before they knew what happened; and they typically die immediately. Wallace even states "when it comes to defending [the lobsters], even to myself, I have to acknowledge that I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, I like to eat certain kinds of animals, and would like to keep doing so" (p 540). Wallace self-discloses here, by telling his readers that while he feels sorry for the lobsters and how cruelly they are killed, he still likes to eat whatever he wants, including lobster if he so pleases.

References

Wallace, D. (2005). Consider the lobster. In Williford, L and Martrone, M (Eds.), Touchstone anthology of contemporary and creative nonfiction: Work from 1970 to present (pp. 525-541).  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Love of My Life - Cheryl Strayed

     Reflecting upon the essay “The Love of My Life” by Cheryl Strayed, I liked it, Much more so than the last essay we had to read. I found myself flying through the essay; I thought it was a very well written essay, and I also venture to say that she is a good author. According to Tracy Clark-Flory at salon.com, a book written by Strayed even inspired Oprah to restart her book club! The highlights in my mind while reading this story were the characters and their names, her thought about the imaginary boat and her gruesome nightmares.  The language used in the essay surprised me; I don’t mind it, because personally, I curse like a sailor. But this article was originally published in The Sun, no. 321 (September 2002). What a risky move to have an article published in such a public place, where not everyone ‘curses like a sailor’. There are several people reading magazines that do not use, or appreciate people using foul language. It was a gutsy move, but it works, it makes Strayed memorable, makes this essay memorable.

     I think it is interesting, how in the article, the author only actually gives names to one of her characters, her husband, Mark; otherwise she gave her characters names like ‘Actually Pretty Famous Drummer Guy’. I think that she is not naming them, so that she is not connected to them. If they don’t have names, they don’t exist in her mind or memory. She even states “The people I messed around with didn’t have names; they had titles” (p 502). Her relationship with Mark seems to be a great, picture-perfect one. He loves her, selflessly, he “just made me want to feel good, better. He loved me, but he loved my mother” (p 501). That was the one and only nail in the coffin of their relationship. I think that she couldn’t handle that connection. He is not only her husband, but he is a person who also loved her mother. He is that one constant, living reminder of her mother. They seem to have lots of love for each other, even through the cheating and lying. After Cheryl admits to cheating on Mark, they get separated and both started dating other people. Being the faithful and selfless husband he is written to be, Mark goes all the way to Portland, after Cheryl is living with a man who is ‘a Punk Rocker Soon to Be Hopelessly Held Under the Thumb of Heroin’, drags her home, and lets her stay at his house. And they end up hooking up again; and they both cheat on the people they are dating. But instead of being the young and in love couple, they turn into the ‘Insanely Young, Insanely Sad, and Insanely Messed-up Married Couple’.  Their relationship finally ends.

     Another thing I find interesting is how she says she has an idea of an imaginary boat of life. Where she wishes she could exchange the fate of her mother, for someone else. She wishes that she could just point her finger and make that person dead and her mother alive. She also wishes that she could take 4 people on a boat…those 4 people would be alive and with you, but only those 4 people, everyone else is gone, forever.  She states “it would be painful, but how quickly you would decide: you and you and you, get in. The rest of you, good-bye.” (p.504). That made me think, who would I take on my boat, she is right, what a hard decision. But at the same time, very easy, I know who I love so much and who I could live without.

     Lastly, I find it fascinating that she mentions that she had nightmares for months and years. Nightmares where she killed her mother. Multiple different scenarios, including how she tied her to a tree, and lit her on fire, how she buried her alive.  I, as a reader, wonder if all of these places and things in her murderous scenarios are something or someplace that was significant in her life. Something that reminded her of her mother, a memory in her life, branded in her subconscious, coming out in her dreams.

     Strayed wore her mother’s wedding ring, until one day, while swimming in an ice-cold river, she lost it. It fell off, and she was unable to find it. She then realizes that she was ‘married’ to her mother. And when she lost that wedding ring, she realizes that she was no longer married to her mother, and her grieving process ends.  In the essay she writes “I did not deny, I did not get angry. I didn’t bargain, become depressed or accept. I fucked, I sucked.”  (p 502) This whole long, grieving process is, not typical, but it still follows all of the phases of grievance. The 5 stages of grievance according to Julie Axelrod at psychcentral.com are, Denial and Isolation, Depression, Anger, Bargaining and Acceptance, not necessarily in that order. Strayed went through all 5 phases, all in her own unique way.  Denial and Isolation: where not even the author’s husband can comfort her, she just wants to be alone. Depression: where she is having sex with a lot of people, for the sole purpose to make herself feel good, and happy. Bargaining: her imaginary boat, and how she wishes she could switch her mother’s death for her some one else’s. Anger: both her nightmares and her sleeping around, to forget everything else but that one thing in that one moment. And finally Acceptance: where she loses her mother’s ring, and finally she accepts the fact that her mother is dead, and simply “drove away from a part of my mother” (p 513).

References

Axelrod, J. (2010). The 5 Stages of Loss and Greif. Psych Central. Retrieved from:
     http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/

Clark-Flory, T. (2012).  Cheryl Strayed: “Tackle love”. Salon. Retrieved from:
     http://salon.com/2012/07/08/cheryl_strayed_tackle_love/

Strayed, C. (2002). The Love of My Life. In Williford, L and Martrone, M (Eds.), Touchstone anthology
     of contemporary and creative nonfiction: Work from 1970 to present (pp.28-42).  New York, NY:
     Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Eula Biss' The Pain Scale.

     In a recent assignment, we were instructed to read and critique Eula Biss' "The Pain Scale", a short, non-fiction narrative about one woman's experience of living with chronic pain. I immediately thought, 'Hey, I'm a trauma nurse; I give loads and loads of pain medication every day....I got this in the bag'. Eh, not so much. Let's discuss my biases about chronic pain as a nurse, and how it relates to the nursing profession. As well as the fact that she can't assign a number to her pain, how severe her pain really is to her, and some internet research that I compiled on The Pain Scale.

      In nursing, when you hear in report about a patient, one of these things listed as a secondary diagnosis; chronic back pain, fibromyalgia, or chronic pain syndrome...you immediately think to yourself, 'oh boy, another pain issue'. However, after reading this essay my views have remained about the same and that is what I call "fuzzy”. For example, my grandmother has a chronic pain problem, in November she was diagnosed with a compression fracture in her back at the T5 level. A compression fracture is usually the result of a traumatic injury to the spine; however, my grandmother has osteoporosis. Her compression fracture has been a result of the force of gravity pushing on her, causing a thoracic spine vertebrae to compress and fracture. This has caused her excruciating pain, caused her to lose 40 pounds because the pain is making her depressed and have no appetite. There is a physical reason why she is experiencing pain, there is proof of pain. This is where things get fuzzy for me. Eula Biss experiences pain that does not have a physical reason. There is no proof of pain, there is just pain. In class we discussed that Biss even questions her sanity, because it is a type of pain that is inexplicable. She questions if this pain really exists, because there is no proof of it on x-ray or blood tests. As stated in the essay, a doctor once told Biss "We have reason to believe you are in pain, even if there is no physical evidence of your pain" (pp 39). The doctors at the Mayo Clinic even suggest that the pain she experiences is similar to the phantom pain phenomenon. A explainable phenomenon experienced by some amputees, in which they experience pain on the part of the extremity just amputated.  In healthcare, we tend to not believe things, unless there is proof that thing does exist.

     One of the first things that you learn in nursing school is "pain is what the patient says it is". What my teacher meant by that is that pain is subjective. The only person who knows what your pain feels like is you. No one else can feel your pain, even if they have had the exact same accident, and has the exact same injuries and fractures, only you can tell how that feels to you. Someone might think that breaking a toe is the most painful thing, and rates it 10/10. Others can literally have their legs crushed under a car, and only rate their pain a 7/10.  Personally I have a hard time assigning a number to pain. I have never experienced anything that is close to the worst pain imaginable, so I have a hard time rating what would be even half of that. Is my broken heel that I stand on and work for 12 hours a day on 3 days a week, half of what it would feel like to be run over by a bus? I don't know what it feels like to be ran over by a bus, so I can't assign that pain a number, and as a result of that, I also can't assign my fractured heel pain a number. In the essay, Biss writes that the worst pain imaginable for her is "burning alive", so she assigns her pain "thirty percent of the pain she feels burning alive would feel like". Then her father says a three is nothing, just a "go home and take two Aspirin kind of pain" (pp.33). It seems like Biss and I have the same problem assigning a number to the pain. Biss also has a hard time understanding how to appropriately use the pain scale, it’s no wonder, if you can’t fathom to what extent your pain is; how can you use a number based scale? However, she also states that "I am comforted, oddly, by the possibility that you cannot compare my pain to yours. And, for that reason, cannot prove it insignificant" (pp.39). 

     When I Googled "Eula Biss, The Pain Scale" many, many results were returned. In this blog, the writer agrees with my ideas on pain by stating "who are we to judge the intensity of pain another person is feeling?  Pain cannot be shared or transferred, so the only person who truly knows how bad the pain is the person who is experiencing it." (Easterling, B. 2011) In the essay Ms. Biss explains with very emphatic detail the way she experiences pain, comparing it to Hell and Dante's Inferno.  I think Biss is trying to describe her pain as her own living hell. She refers to a wind strength scale used to measure hurricanes to measure her pain, but she never actually gives a number to her pain. As a reader, I do have empathy for her, as she states she would rather cut off her finger in exchange for the chronic pain she experiences on a daily basis, and even has a flitting thought about suicide.That puts into perspective just how severe she thinks her pain is. Isn’t it ironic how when people are in an extreme amount of pain, they will cause themselves more pain and problems just to end, or even decrease, that pain. Not only is Biss in physical pain, but also spiritual, mental and emotional pain.  As I mentioned earlier my grandmother suffers from chronic pain and on countless occasions, I have heard my grandmother say to my grandfather, “just drop me off on the highway and I’ll step in front of a semi and end this pain. That is just selfish, in situations when people think suicide is the ‘only option left’, they are thinking of themselves and their pain. They are not thinking about their family and friends who would be devastated if they were suddenly and tragically taken from their lives. There is always ways to medicate and help to treat pain, there is no way to replace a family member or friend.

    I don't like the style in which this essay was written, I find it hard to follow. It’s like there was no plan of action on how to organize this essay, just going from one idea to another. I found myself having to go back and re-read most of it, because I would lose focus. Then I came across this blog that states that “The quick thought changes, while seemingly ‘all over the place’ all correlate to one cohesive internal dilemma that fights within Biss.” (Bee, L. 2012). Thinking about it like that puts the way the story was written into a completely different picture, and I whole heartedly agree with the writer of that blog. Now that the 'bug has been put in my ear', it makes so much sense as to why it was written the way it was. It is actually very well organized into an argument between the author and herself.  This is an article I thought I would breeze right through and it would be a really easy assignment to complete. Now that I have read “The Pain Scale” I have learned a bit more about how people with chronic pain feel. I am still “fuzzy” on chronic pain; as to the etiology of it, and the way it manifests without signs and symptoms. However, after reading this article, I can have far more empathy and even sympathy for the patient with chronic, unexplainable pain; as well as being able to understand a little more about how the patient is feeling on the inside. They may not verbalize their feelings about the way this pain is literally controlling their every move. I can have more compassion for the way my patients with chronic pain, or fibromyalgia feel, how much they actually do hurt, even if we can’t see it on an x-ray, or there is not pathophysiology for their pain. They may be having a lifelong internal battle, and be quietly suffering and not telling anyone, it’s no wonder a secondary diagnosis of chronic pain or fibromyalgia is accompanied with depression and anxiety. 


                                           
                                                         References

Bee, L. (2012). On Eula Biss's "the Pain Scale". Literary Musings. Retrieved

     from http://laneybranchlikeatree.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/on-eula-    

     bisss-the-pain-scale/

Biss, E. (2005). The Pain Scale. In Williford, L and Martrone, M (Eds.),  

    Touchstone anthology of contemporary and creative nonfiction: Work

     from 1970 to present (pp.28-42).  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Easterling, B. (2011). Eula Biss' "The Pain Scale". ENC 1102. Retrieved from

     http://brianna-easterling.blogspot.com/2011/09/eula-biss-pain-scale.html