After a surgery in 2019, my doctor asked me to describe, on a scale of 1 to 10, my tolerance for pain.

What kind of question is that?

My natural reaction was to channel my inner Rambo and say my tolerance for pain is 10. I’m so tough, I can get hit by a falling piano and shrug it off like a paper cut.

Then I got to thinking, I’ve had some pretty nasty paper cuts over the years so maybe I’m a wimp and my tolerance for pain is more like a 1 or 2. 

I really don’t know how to answer that question because I’m not Bill Clinton and I can’t "feel your pain." I guess my tolerance for pain is like most people. I don’t enjoy pain and I’d like to avoid it if possible.

I mention all this because I received my second COVID-19 vaccination on Monday. I am currently working through the usual symptoms described in the vaccine warnings such as “soreness” in my arm. I’d say “soreness” is definitely an optimistic word because my arm feels like it was attacked by a chainsaw or caught in a bear trap. 

I would certainly not describe what my arm is experiencing as soreness, but that may be my Level 1 tolerance for pain talking. Maybe most people are used to not being able to lift their arm to put on a shirt or brush their teeth and don't mind it at all. It's just a little sore.

The vaccine literature also noted I might experience minor body aches associated with the shot. My personal assessment would be to say my body feels like I was hurled from a speeding pickup, so minor aches is certainly a gentler form of phrasing.

I don’t say any of this to discourage folks from getting the COVID vaccine because I’d like to see everyone get the shots in hopes we can develop widespread immunity. In a perfect world, I’d like to think we’d all get vaccinated as we work to get past the frightful year of 2020 and return to the days of rock concerts and jam-packed football games.

Moments after my second dose I was told I would be considered fully inoculated in two weeks and would be free to embrace life with my former zest. This would be a neat trick indeed as I’ve been looking for my former zest for some time and figure it must be packed away in a suitcase.

If these COVID shots can help me find my former zest, they will be well worth it, even with having to endure the “soreness” in my arm and “mild body aches” that feel as if I was beaten with a tire iron.

Maybe I’ll even get back to being healthy as a horse, at least a horse with a bad back, poor eyesight and the inability to run very fast.

Standard editor James Clark can be reached at 473-2191.