The BaRF Meter

I enjoy reading Dr. Grumpy's blog -- not for medical advice, but for some medical humor.  The humor doesn't come in the form of jokes, but in the absurdity of real-life situations this neurologist comes across every day.  In a recent post, he shows a medical rating scale he came across to ask kids how nauseous they feel.  It is called the Baxter Retching Faces (or BaRF) Scale.  This is for real, and further Googling shows that quite a bit of research went into its development.

Since I have been dealing with nausea recently, I thought it might be interesting to show how I am feeling on the BaRF meter.  I am currently a 2, with just a little uneasiness in the tummy.  However, when I don't have food in my tummy and I start to get hungry, that can quickly change to a 4 or 6.  I've had a couple days in the past couple weeks where I reached an 8 and 9.  I'm making up the 9 because I was dry heaving but nothing really came up.  Luckily, no 10 yet...

Overall, I am feeling less nauseated than I was when I first started taking the azathioprine.  Hopefully this is a good sign that the nausea will eventually pass.

- a little lupie -