Price of Pain Tolerance

I have encountered a number of pseudo disabled or just general whingers who complain because they wake up in pain, often daily. I have been doing this for decades and if anything have tried turning it to my advantage. Knowing I am going to wake up in pain anyway means I can train harder and be in pain from the day or so before rather than damage I caused decades ago. Part of my acceptance seems to derive from my knowing the pain I feel is largely from stupid things I have done so is my own fault.
Becoming accustomed to this over the years has given me quite a high pain tolerance, something until recently I have thought was a strength with few drawbacks and I felt I could deal with these. An example is when I broke 3 of my toes a number of years ago and accepted the anti-inflammatory medication but refused pain relief, not because I am too tough, but because I judge what I can do based on pain so if I don't feel the pain I would push too far and cause more damage. Basically I am too stupid to use painkillers in this type of situation but smart enough to realise this and work with it.
There is an example of where this can go horribly wrong I saw over the weekend and this has made me think a bit. My father is someone else who got used to waking up in pain daily and just dealing with it. Pre-seat belt laws he had an accident driving a van where the van ended up on its side with him going through the windscreen and landing in a pile of glass on the floor. I was passenger in the van with a seat belt, got hurt a little but I remember the blood around him making it clear his was far worse. The damage to his back wasn't enough to stop him working, he had a family to feed and got on with it. So when new bits of pain started up they were largely ignored in the same way. The latest of these was in his liver, an area close enough to his back to be ignored until it left him stranded at the roadside unable to drive due to pain. After some tests etc. they found he has inoperable advanced liver cancer and infection, considering the liver can grow back with anything up to 80% of it removed this has been an issue for some time.
This is the cost of pain tolerance. We become so used to feeling pain daily and just ignoring it that we don't report things until they are too late. In the case of my father, he will pay the ultimate price for this by dying from something that is incredibly easy to fix if caught early enough. The liver is the most resilient organ so cancer or damage here is usually fixed by simply removing the affected part and allowing the body to replace it. There are lifestyle changes during recovery and often liver diseases have a lifestyle cause, like long term excessive alcohol consumption which have to stop permanently but it's easier to fix than a heart issue.
I know the pain I wake up in is more than he grew accustomed to so even though I am less upset than many expect me to be about his upcoming demise it has had an impact on me. My father wasn't present for most of my upbringing and for various reasons his promises to see me fell through so often I remember responding to one promise of see you on Friday with 'Which Friday?' before walking away. A macho person would declare this showed how little they cared, in truth this showed how much damage it had caused. The impact his demise is having on me is very different to this. I am realising how badly damaged or close to death I could be before bothering to tell one of the thousands of overpaid and under competent GPs we have here in the UK. It's not a pleasant thought.
Everything in life has a cost. My fitness costs time and effort from training, fortunately I enjoy this but the training costs energy which I have to eat, while I like nice food much of what I eat is literally just fuel because I need it. The benefits I get from being fit and the enjoyment I have for my training make this worthwhile. Now of course I have to figure out if my life of being so used to background pain I barely seem to notice it is worth the damage that could occur without me realising. Truth is of course I am likely too far down the road to be able to do anything about it, but none the less it will take some thought.