One Of The First Things They Ask You In The ER Is To Rate Your Pain On A Scale From One To Ten. I've

One of the first things they ask you in the ER is to rate your pain on a scale from one to ten. I've been asked this question hundreds of times and I remember once when I couldn't catch my breath and it felt like my chest was on fire… the nurse asked meto rate the pain. Though I couldn't speak, I held up nine fingers. Later, when I started feeling better, the nurse came in and she called me a fighter."You know how I know?" she said. "You called a ten a nine." But that wasn't the truth. I didn't call it a nine because I was brave. The reason I called it a nine was because I was saving my ten. And this was it. This was the great and terrible ten.

-- Hazel (The Fault in Our Stars)