Sometimes I feel like the world’s biggest liar. Okay, not a liar. But I do feel like people may think I’m lying. Do I sound paranoid? Stay with me. I’ll explain.

I go to the chiropractor every Wednesday. Today was my fourth visit, and Dr. Rosa — my regular doctor — is on vacation. The chiropractic assistant (massage therapist?) always asks me how I’m feeling and to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. Sounds pretty basic, right?

It’s not. When she asked me today, I said, “Well, my back is all better, as long as I’m very careful about how I sit and stuff.”

“Good,” she said, making a note. “And your neck?”

“My neck is — well, it’s stiff — but it’s more my arms.”

“And how would you rate the pain?”

“Well, it’s so on and off it’s hard to tell. I guess… a six?”

It is so hard to explain to someone something that isn’t always there, or plays musical chairs. Like, when my back hurt I could say, “it was an eight all day today, but now it’s about a five,” or “it’s been a four today.” With my arms, one spot could be a three, another could be a nine, yet another could be a six and another could be a 999939572359i27t59275. The next day I could have a pain number of two in my wrist for a few minutes, ten in my upper arm thirty minutes later, then sharper pain in my wrist. The scale system really doesn’t work, unless I were to walk around with a notepad noting each spot and the scale number. That would get awfully tedious. I mean, I have a hard enough time doing things as it is because of this. If I were to stop each and every time just to write it down, I’d never get anything done!

Besides, what would I do at the end of the day? Find the mean, median and mode of all of the numbers? Would those calculations be, like, the final scale number I give to the people at my chiropractor’s office? In that case, I’d better pick up a notepad and a calculator.

PS: I’ve edited all of my pre-diagnosis posts and put them in the Thoracic Outlet Syndrome category, if anyone is interested in reading them from the beginning. There are probably — no, definitely — more that I haven’t gotten to. I’ll get there. Eventually. chronic pain posts and put them in the Weird Arm Problem category. That’s all I’ve got right now. Thoracic Outlet Syndrome sounded way, way cooler. Sigh.