The quotation steve in ottawa submitted reminds me that there are some among us who live with chronic pain every day of their lives. Often, the meds that would eliminate the pain would also render the individual unconscious. Rather than to seek painless oblivion, these people must ride a thin line between tolerable and intolerable pain in order to function more or less normally. (And when I say "tolerable," in many cases this is sometimes a degree of pain that most folks would never want to face even once.) They have every reason to whine. They have complete justification for being irritable. Yet many of them refuse to give in to those aspects of their pain. I consider these people among my heroes.