Pain

Most people would never think of the sensation of feeling pain to be a blessing, or a good thing. However, once again, Bree has enlightened me to a whole new world of things I never thought I would be dealing with, or I even thought about.

 We have known since Bree was little that she has a VERY high pain tolerance.

Here's some examples: She could have IV's put in, or blood draws done without flinching. She would simply just look at the person doing them. And once she learned to walk she could take a very hard tumble or a bump without crying or fussing. She would simply say "Oh."

Now the girls do go to preschool two days a week right now, and recently Bree has been bit three times in the past week. The first two happened on Tuesday and the teachers were able to see it happen. There were incident reports to fill out and sign. The teachers commented that Bree didn't seem to be bothered by the bites. They said that most children scream and cry when it happens and then they are really grumpy and whiny for the rest of the day. They said 5 minutes after Bree got bit she was perfectly fine. One of the bites wasn't too bad, but she had one on the back of her upper left arm that is still bruised even today (4 days after it happened). When we showed up on Thursday to pick her up from preschool Bree had a bright red bite mark on her left forearm. The teacher had no idea. She had not fussed or expressed discomfort at all.

Another incident was when we went to go get her out of her crib from nap. We have been told to be giving her choices and making her shake her head 'yes' or 'no' in order to have her start communicating more instead of us automatically doing things for her. So I asked her "do you want to get up from nap? Yes? or No?" She tilted her chin up, and brought it back down, but ended up bringing it back down right onto her crib. I could hear her teeth clack together and it sounded painful. I even drew in a breath and grimaced, expecting crying. She didn't even flinch or change facial expressions. Didn't phase her one bit.

These are just a few examples, and there are many many more. We are going to make an appointment with her pediatrician this next week because I am beginning to think that this is a problem. We used to think that she was just a tough kid, but it is to the point that it is almost hazardous to her health. She's going to be the kid who tells me her arm feels funny, and it is going to end up being broken.

I never thought I would have to tell my child that even though it doesn't hurt her it's not okay for someone to bite her, and that she needs to tell her teacher.

Are there any other preemies out there that seem to have unusually high pain tolerances that is a problem?