Missing Factor: February 2010

About This Blog

It started out as a place where I, a newly retired, frustrated writer, could post my rambling little self-indulgent essays where untold millions of readers could ignore them instead of just my wife. In that regard it was an unmitigated success.

Lately, however, its primary function has been evolving into being the record the world of the 50s through the 70s from the point of view of a boy with hemophilia, which would, of course, be me. I am convinced that one of the reasons I survived some of my more dramatic hemorrhages is because I knew my grandfather had survived even worse. If he could make it given the treatment he received, I knew I could make it.

Now there is yet another generation of little boys with hemophilia, and their parents, trying to make sense of it all. Many of the problems my brother and I faced have been resolved by advances in medicine, but the vast majority are still there causing parents and boys to stare at the ceiling long into the night wondering how they are going to cope with some issue. Perhaps, if they can see how I, and hopefully others, dealt with the same issues, it will take some of the fear out of the equation, and give them the confidence to find their own way. After all, if a schlep like me can do it, think of how well you will be able to.

I am moving all of the posts not related to hemophilia, hospitals, and other things that start with 'H' over to my other blogs (listed brazenly in the sidebars and navigation buttons in the header), and hope that one or two of you will see fit to visit them, if only to find out my opinion of pick-up trucks.

25 February 2010

Number nine, number nine . . .

I think the one question that is guaranteed to drive me completely mad is:

On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst pain you can imagine, how would you rate your pain right now?

I hate that bloody question. Mostly because I never know how to answer it. Is this pain a 6 or an 8? It hurts a lot, but nowhere near a couple of hemorrhages I have had. So do I say it's a 5 because it is only about half as bad as the bleed I had in my arm, or is it an 8 or 9 because it still hurts like hell. I think that for most people the worst pain they can imagine is pretty much the worst pain they have experienced, and when I was twelve I was pretty sure I had experienced the worst pain imaginable. As it turns out, I might have been wrong, but that is a story for another time.

The Rest of the Story