A little background on my grandson, Chad. He is 9 yo and was born with Gastroschisis. Because it took a couple of weeks to get all his intestines back inside the hole in his abdomen when he was born, he was on lots of pain meds for the first few weeks of his life. My daughter was finally able to bring him home when he was 10 weeks.

He is bright and normal in every way, except he doesn't have a belly button (due to the surgery).

I almost posted on this phenomenon a few weeks ago when he accidentally got burned while we were making cookies and didn't complain.

Now his mother tells me that his bare leg touched the hot exhaust pipe when he was getting off their motorscooter and HE DIDN'T SAY A WORD! Later that night, after he showered and got ready for bed, he showed his parents that he had removed the burnt skin from the wound. (Cringing as I type this!)

The burn is on the inside of his leg, just above the ankle. His mother says its the size you get when you put your thumb and forefinger together and make a circle (she has long fingers, too!)

So my DD put Neosporin and gauze on it for the night, then let it "air out" a couple of days. Now it's looking pretty gross and she's considering taking him to the Dr. tomorrow, as more than one layer of skin is involved.

What do you make of this? I know Chad can feel pain because I've seen him cry after getting injured when he was younger. This is not a display of bravado. He just shrugs off pain, but how and why?