Okay, I can feel pain but not the same way that normal people do.
Think about a time when you had a major trauma like a broken bone and received morphine or demerol. It still hurt, but it hurt 'way over there' so you didn't really care about it. I don't notice pain unless I actually concentrate and focus on it. That sensation is really similar to how my body reacts to surface trauma. I have to be really careful when I'm sewing because I get pins stuck in my hands and arms and don't notice unless I actually see them sticking out of me. When I worked in mining I split my thumb open through my glove and didn't notice until I took it off to smoke and saw all the blood. I get stung by wasps and don't notice until I start getting hives....I feel the itch and see the welt and have to check my entire body to see where the sting was. The only time I'm ever in actual PAIN is when I have a IBD attack...if it hurts ME I don't even want to think about what a normal person must feel like. I can see how some actually pass out from it.
It probably sounds appealing to everyone else but it's more of a curse then a blessing. It's really worrisome to me because I'm going to be working in an medical environment where I'll have to handle needles. If I get a needle stick by accident, how am I going to know? If I get a stick with a contaminated needle I might not realize it in time to get preventative treatments.
Who else has abnormally high pain tolerances? How do you deal with it? I suppose I can just develop an OCD habit of checking my arms and hands after I've done a procedure but I can't shake the paranoia. My scope of practise will include venipuncture (every other province gets the nurses to do that but not stupid Manitoba) and things like arterial blood gas sampling. I can't get out of doing it if its in my scope.
I don't even really know what I'm asking for here. I'm just getting really close to starting my program and now I've got the jitters about accidentally contaminating myself and getting sick. I wish I was a sucky little pansy when it comes to pain so I wouldn't have to worry.



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