i was trying to explain to my evening shift nurse just now that im not experiencing pain so much as anxiety or nervousness. this was hard. . . i lack the vocabulary. i managed to get it across with some pantomime and a dictionary.
at one point i noticed i was shaking my leg in that nearly universal body language of nervousness, so i gestured to it, "there, see? nervous."
she understood but then she wanted to explain some saying to me. its pretty rare for a nurse to stick around to make conversation, especially with such insurmountable linguistic barriers. . . so i was surprised. i was even more surprised when over the next 5 minutes she successfully explained the saying to me: when we shake our legs nervously like that our happiness will run away on them.
hmm.