Pain
This morning I had my second ultra-sound treatment of my lovely kidney stone. Now in terms of pain, the internal surgery I had last year was right up there and my my sciatica seems no more uncomfortable than a strong handshake. It made me think - pain is relative and personal. We don't know in objective terms what other people really encounter. It is also an area which we touch upon in our writing but perhaps not as often as love or distress or sadness - still palpably real to us all. Is that because in writing about it, to a degree, we re-experience it?
By the way, the machine goes up to 10 and apparently they only turn it up to that in the second session because if they did it in the first session no-one would come back. I asked her what would happen if she turned it up to 11 and she said my kidney would literally explode... well that would certainly get rid of the kidney stone.