The expression of pain and its difficulties were discussed in this article. The article described the personal account of David Biro who underwent a bone marrow transplantation and, after struggling to describe his experience, decided to write a book with the theme of articulating the feeling of pain. He mentions how pain is both "isolating" yet "all-encompassing" and attempts to explain why "pain is impossible to share." He settles on the use of metaphor to effectively convey the feeling of pain stating, "metaphor gives us words and objects where there were none." This quote opened up new questions for me beyond that of the topic of pain. For example, how was it first determined what word to ascribe to a sensation when such words were lacking?

It is strange to think about how words are originally assigned to objects or feelings. Especially in the case of things that are more abstract such as pain, how can people know that they are talking about the same thing? It seems that each interpretation of a word or a sensation truly comes down to the individual. Language, thus, is such an arbitrary experience because there is a time when one person can completely understand what another person is communicating. It seems that it depends largely on the experience which I suppose is the way that people were gradually able to decide on which words to assign to a sensation that cannot be physically shared.

The article also reminded me of my own experience in trying to describe pain. For example, we are often asked by doctors whether the pain we feel is throbbing, pounding, shooting, etc. However, it always seemed that pain could not necessarily be described in such manners. It was always hard for to discern which adjective to describe the pain I was feeling. This must have implications in the diagnosis of individual cases. Because each individual has his or her own idea about what a certain pain feels like, it is important not to solely rely on these adjectives when trying to ascertain what is wrong with a person. I never thought about how clear or explicit people must be when administering diagnoses until taking this class, but now I realize that it is e especially important to pay attention to how doctors and patients communicate with each other in order to determine what is best for them.