Nightly Nociception

After a couple of major incidents, we've come to observe that if we were to suffer from anything that would keep us awake, it would be around 6am before we would be able to drop off from utter exhaustion (regardless of further pain or suffering).

It all started on Monday at rehearsal.

See, for the dikir barat song choreography the lot of us are supposed to sit cross-legged on the floor and clap and sing and whatnot. And on Monday we were sitting cross-legged on the floor for a good hour or more, we had a large blister on the outer side of our right foot. And by the time we noticed the blister it had already burst.

Normally this would only be a mild inconvenience. We'd just need to go get a plaster and problem solved. And this we did.

Come yesterday we see a few others also with plasters on their right foot. Heh.

And last night as we were sleeping, the pain started.

Perhaps a little explaination will be needed. See, we had an operation yonks ago that left our right leg slightly weaker and the foot partly numb although we still do have certain amount of motor control thankfully. And it's 'partly numb' ya, not totally numb. Don't think that we can go around poking a needle into our right foot or putting a naked flame near to it won't hurt us.

At the time we'd left the blister exposed as we were done showering and had to change our plaster. At first we thought that there was some rough residue stuck on the blister wound. A mild brush across the wound and once we were satisfied that there was nothing on it, we slumped back to sleep.

Only to be disturbed by a sharp pain again. A sharp, cold piercing sensation at not only the wound but the skin surrounding the wound area too. And it stung frequently too! Everytime we think we could drop off to sleep, we would get a sting that would get our heart beating faster for a while and us unable to rest.

Think of someone taking an ice-cold needle, and piercing it into your foot. Make that ten needles. And then taking it out, letting the pain subside and for you to recuperate. Only to pierce you again about about 2 minutes later. Continue for the entire night.

We suspected that it was due to the nerves on our foot but there was only so many things we could try to remedy the situation at past 3am at night.

Panadol. Antihistamines to help sleep it through. Cleaning the wound and applying a fresh layer of Fucidin. Oh and plaster it up again.

Nothing worked. Oh we didn't take the stronger painkillers as we didn't think adding possible gastric pain to our current situation would be helpful. Oh and our muscle relaxant was left in the office.

We were even desperate enough to try dabbing our ulcer gel onto the surrounding area of the wound just to see if the lignocaine would help numb it till we fall asleep.

No such luck.

Further desperation led to us applying the gel onto the wound as well.

Still no luck.

Possibly the only thing that worked was whacking our foot to cause more pain, but this kind of pain is the kind expected from a normal wound that would heat up slightly and lead to a mild sustained and dull pain. But eventually the sharp nerve attacks would return.

Somehow we must had knocked out in exhaustion. Throughout the entire night we never did look at the time, because doing so we would not only know what time it was, but we would automatically calculate the number of hours of sleep we would have left and despair. But we do know that by 6am we would be totally exhausted because Wee Wog has already woken up by then and have harrassed our parents to let her out to the porch so that she can do her business.

We've now gotten better painkillers courtesy of our nearby clinic, and tonight we shall see if we can sleep through it!