High tolerance for pain?

I'm not sure what to do with a child who under-reports sickness. (I didn't know that was even possible). Jenna came into our room at 5 a.m. this morning and complained that her ear hurt. Later that morning she said she was fine and that it didn't hurt anymore so I took her to my Mom's house to visit with her cousins who were in town from Idaho. While we were there she laid on the couch instead of playing so I asked her again if she was feeling sick or if her ear hurt. "No, my head hurts." I let her lay on the couch but since she didn't have a fever I decided to just keep an eye on her. Every time I talked to her about taking medicine she absolutely refused and said, "I'm feeling better, I don't need medicine." Later on after we returned to our house I found her laying down with a blanket yet again. "Jenna, are you sick? Does your head still hurt? Does your ear hurt?" No, she replied, I'm feeling better I'm just tired. Finally at around 5 p.m. I went to check on her and looked into her ear while she was asleep. I could see a significant amount of ear wax type stuff so I thought it was time to take her to the doctor. It just wasn't normal for her to be sleeping all day. As I was trying to get her to wake up she was kind of delirious but managed to get this out, "I feel much better, I'm just sleepy." Well, by this time I knew I couldn't count on her to properly report what she was feeling. Sure enough she had a big infection in both ears and one of her ear drums had ruptured. I thought she had an ear infection in the one ear, but was surprised that she had one in the other ear as well.

When the Doctor left I said, "Jenna, did this other ear hurt today?"
"Not much."
"What about this one, did it hurt?"
"Not really." Ok, I'm not sure how a ruptured ear drum didn't really hurt, but we had a little talk about how she needs to talk to us so we can get things taken care of. I know her big issue is taking medicine--she doesn't like it. I'm hoping the bubble gum flavor medicine will be easier for her to take or we are going to be in for a long 10 days!

Jenna not feeling so well.

Apparently my Jenna has a high tolerance for pain.