Pain can be notoriously difficult to describe, as almost everyone who has ever been asked to will know. At a recent medical visit, my doctor asked me to rank my pain on a scale from 1 to 10. I found it incredibly difficult to do. A 10, she said, meant “the worst pain imaginable,” which brought back unpleasant memories of having appendicitis.
A short while before the problem that brought me in, I’d broken my toe in two places, which had hurt like a mother—but less than appendicitis. If…








