Painless
Ashlyn Blocker does not feel pain, a condition called ‘Congenital insensitivity to pain.’ Although she can feel pressure, and warm or cool, she can’t feel extreme heat or cold. In this profile in the NY Times Magazine, though, she seems like a relatively well-adjusted 13 year-old girl, which is a credit to her and her parents. Pretty fascinating story.
Tara and John weren’t completely comfortable leaving Ashlyn alone in the kitchen, but it was something they felt they had to do, a concession to her growing independence. They made a point of telling stories about how responsible she is, but every one came with a companion anecdote that was painful to hear. There was the time she burned the flesh off the palms of her hands when she was 2. John was using a pressure-washer in the driveway and left its motor running; in the moments that they took their eyes off her, Ashlyn walked over and put her hands on the muffler. When she lifted them up the skin was seared away. There was the one about the fire ants that swarmed her in the backyard, biting her over a hundred times while she looked at them and yelled: “Bugs! Bugs!” There was the time she broke her ankle and ran around on it for two days before her parents realized something was wrong. They told these stories as casually as they talked about Tristen’s softball games or their son Dereck’s golf skills, but it was clear they were still struggling after all these years with how to keep Ashlyn safe.
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“It is an extraordinary disorder,” Woods said. “Boys die at a younger age because of more risky behavior. It’s quite interesting, because it makes you realize pain is there for a number of reasons, and one of them is to use your body correctly without damaging it and modulating what you do.”
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