Excrutiating pain...

The pain from my ingrown thumb nail is unbearable, I have really never felt anything like it. It's a throbbing pain that stings my nerve endings, that immoblises my right hand, and  makes the back of my head ache from cringing and from trying to bear it with all my willpower... But at times the pain is so dizzying I feel I could collapse and faint...

They say there is nothing more acute than physical pain (maybe a heartbreak, but pain of a different type and degree...). Pain that you cannot control, because your body is trying to tell you something is wrong. And luckily I've rarely had to deal with physical ailments... until two days ago when the swelling suddenly and unexpectedly began. Pus was collecting, and the skin above the cuticle of the thumb was being stretched to abnormal proportions. That was probably the cause of the pain... that the this feeling of feverish warmth and burning sensation mixed with constant throbbing pain. The pain is so bad that I had to go buy painkillers, something I've never ever done before (in fact, I didn't know how or when to ingest them...)

I really have to stop biting my fingers, because as someone told me today, I brought this all on myself... All that gnawing and biting, chewing and attempts to peel back thin layers of the nail as far as possible into the flesh... Is it a thrill, a form of self-mortification, an expression of my nervousness? I do not know. But I know I am suffering as a result of it right now...

I cannot even bend my thumb and seem to have lost control of that bit of my hand, whereas it is the bit that hurts the most. And because it affects my right hand, I can't perform simple tasks like just opening the bottle of antibiotics I have been prescribed with (embarrassingly, my colleague had to do that for me...) The doctor told me to soak the numb in warm water and try to squeeze the pus out, which I did. And when it happened, much of the tension and pain was released. Out oozed this smelly yellowish, thick liquid that just kept on coming out. And where there used to be inflammation was now just stretched old skin covering blackened clots of blood. It really is very nasty to look at, and horribly smelly. And now I am left with a heightened sense of pain that makes me cringe and want to cry. My friend warned me I have to be careful because too intense a pain can cause fever, and he even offered to escort me home. Is it going to get worse before it gets better, I wonder...

And this is just the pain from a nerve ending at the tip of the thumb. Imagine the pain mum has to bear with her nerve and spinal cord being pressed by the tumour? Imagine that pain, if the pain I am feeling now is already so very, very unbearable... How brave my mum is, how very, very brave I could cry if I just think about now...

Pain, pain... now I know personally how it can paralyse your daily functions and fill your mind with agony and dizziness.