Pain, Pain... It's the name of the game.

We all feel it, in so many ways, at different times and with different intensities. Both physical and emotional in nature, it can mean so different things to different people. Most of the pain that graces the blogosphere is typically about the emotional pain, but this post is about the physical.

When it comes to physical pain I’d say I’ve endured my fair share. Everyone goes through the usual stuff when they're kids consisting of cuts and bruises with the occasionally more serious injury. I can remember kissing asphalt with my joints on more than one occasion and looking back at a thick oozing mess where my body touched the ground.

One injury ripped out all the nerves on my knee causing me to lose surface feeling there. In fact when I touch that area I get the unusual feeling of touching a stuffed animal. The reason… I only get the sensation from my finger. That was a pretty painful injury. I can remember putting on trousers was something I used to do with great trepidation at the time because slight contact with my then swollen knee hurt like a bitch and would result in me cursing at the top of my lungs. For a long time I couldn’t kneel down on that knee because it hurt too much (that was my test for seeing how it was doing). 7 years later my knee sometimes still bugs me, but it’s not a major issue anymore.

So what is the point of all the above? Its just the prelude to the real story; the most painful physical experience I’ve ever had. It’s at this point that I’m going to be a little vague, but suffice to say I had to undergo a small surgery. It wasn’t life threatening and only required local anesthetic which I’m not entirely convinced of its effectiveness.

After receiving the shot, the cutting began. I can tell you that despite the anesthetic I could pretty much feel everything. A strange burning sensation akin to having a zipper being pulled over your skin, only much more intense and without cessation. That went on for what I know felt much longer than it actually did. It was pretty painful and was a sensation I had never felt before, but... was bearable.

The End? Sadly not. The worse was yet to come. The second part of this operation I can safely say hurt like a mother. This part definitely went on for a while and so felt like an eternity. Pain, pain pain, burning intense pain, sharp, stinging and burning intensely; that’s what it consisted of.

I can tell you that I’m not really much of a screamer, a curser yes, but not a screamer. But this was seriously pushing the limit, going somewhere I had never been before when it came to pain. Let’s just say I was extremely agitated and squirming despite insistence that I shouldn’t. This unbelievable pain just kept getting bigger and bigger, and went on and on until eventually I reached a completely new place. I had been crying out in the end; it seemed to go on forever. But what happened next really surprised me.

Where do you go once the pain never ends and gets worse and worse? Well quite frankly it blew my mind. I can remember thinking ‘how can it be this painful? This is ridiculous!!! Absurd!!’ It was at this point I did what I never expected would happen. I began to laugh. Slowly at first and then more and more until it was pretty hysterical. Crazy? I think not. The concept of pain at that point of time to me had become completely ludicrous; it was just so much that it seemed outrageous and unreal. How could anything hurt so much? The entire situation seemed such a farce.

The strange laughter carried on till the end of this operation. To say I was relieved when it was over would be an understatement. As I tiredly hobbled away from this experience I was presented with one last gift. My eyesight went all pixilated like some bad 80’s videogame with everything looking like MS Paint on 200% zoom. Shortly afterward I fell over backwards but was fortunately caught by my brother.

Much like with the experience with my knee, even for weeks afterward I would remember the pain and cover away in fear of the remembrance. Fortunately I no longer remember that feeling anymore, just what I was thinking at the time.

I know I know, there are probably or most definitely much worse physical pain experiences out there I’m sure, but for me this was the most painful of them all.