The next day I asked Steve if exquisitely tender is an official medical term. I had heard him use it before, and it struck me as funny—like marvelously sore or fantastically achy. He explained that it’s used to describe the kind of pain that someone can’t hide even if they’re trying their best to be stoic. Then he said, “We also call it chandelier pain—like it hurts so much to the touch that people jump as high as the chandelier.”
