Arrrrrrrrrrgh!

Chronic pain. Debilitating illness. There's little fun to be had from these subjects. So hats off to Shanghai Daily and its over zealous/under zealous/possibly nonexistent subs' desk for throwing a hyperbole cherry bomb in to the toilet bowl of one individual's suffering. The following, which featured in Friday's paper, is best if you imagine it's being read by Peter Cushing:

STABBING. Gnawing. Burning.

Severe pain can rip your life apart and make you pray for death. It can cripple you and slam you into a wheelchair. It can be the end of the spirit that infused you with joy and morph into the rot that grows unchecked in your soul.

Dr Joan Barice never imagined that she would be wrestling with that kind of evil. Not when she was skydiving or mountain climbing, activities that could have ended badly and pitted her against that demon. But she met the demon in a place she didn't expect - the Atlanta airport. She had been waiting to board a plane for Kosovo, Yugoslavia, in November 1999. There, this skilled doctor from Singer Island with degrees from Stanford University and Harvard, planned to help ease pain and heal illness.

"We were boarding. I bent over, got my bag to board and completely lost my urine and lost 90 percent use of my legs," Barice said, recalling the incident with amazement.

More here.