I’ve always wondered if their nerves just stop working, they’re just that 'suck it up and deal' or what, because my grandmother, at 90, walked on a broken ankle for over a week before she started complaining. It makes me cringe thinking about it still.
Maybe that generation really is tougher than us *youngsters* (I'm in my mid-50s). There's a man at the ranch where we board our mare who had a riding accident: He fell off while his horse was working cattle and his horse stepped on him, breaking/cracking several ribs. He got back on and finished moving the cattle. I asked him if he took some time off to heal. He said, "No. Why would I?"
When I met DH, I was working temp jobs and didn't have medical insurance. I tripped and landed on the side of my foot. I thought I broke something, but darling, thoughtful, DF said it couldn't be broken if I could walk on it. Basically he said "suck it up and deal." Well, it hurt a
lot to walk on it. Whenever I didn't need to be standing, I was trying to elevate my foot above my heart so it would stop throbbing. When I came home from work, I iced it down.
Several months later I was working a full time, permanent job with medical insurance benefits. I managed to smash my baby toe into something and had X-rays taken of my foot. The X-ray showed a 3 inch long spiral fracture of the fifth metatarsal bone which healed straight, but twisted. That little toe had to have a joint removed because the toe was now sideways and the joint did not fit in my steel-toed boots (required for my job). Otherwise, it was an impressive fracture which healed well without surgery. In fact, the doctor said that, had I sought medical care, they would have pinned the bone and it would be weaker than the "Popeye" bone I have now.