Trauma sounds excessive, but for me, it’s not. Whole heartedly, while this un-Godly disease, yes it is a disease like COVID19 fades, this event was traumatic. A traumatic event.

I liken my Shingles to an unexpected car accident, one in which your car flipped over and the gasoline tank erupted, only to ignite into a burst of flames. Like in the movies! Narrowly escaping for ones life, with you unfortunately catching on fire on half the side of your body. Just your trunk to make it better. (The picture I am using is to convey a message.) You look like you’ll survive, but only later to feel the remaining burn, unlike this fellow who clearly died.

It’s like this because for 1. it was unexpected, 2. it traumatic, and 3. you catch on fire but this time your nerves erupt from within, exuding bubbles of virus (which it never did) but I could see trying. I suppose it hurt so bad, because one’s nerves don’t usually exude anything but electrical currents. And well, because it accumulates under your skin in the dermal layer where your nerve tips are. The pounding pressure of ten thousand mini-volcanic pimples dying to erupt from deep below.

This was like a slow car wreck though. One like in the movie Inception, when the van slowly flips over at 1/30th of a second. My shingles progressed like this. My tolerance for the pain, as of last Friday seemed measurable. That is, I was handling it. I remember last Friday working, remembering the tight grip, like rope, squeezing, and heat coming from my side and chest. I felt like I was tied up in that terrible bamboo rope, forced to live in it.

But then somewhere along the way, my tolerance subsided, in fact it disappeared. You’d think it would be early on, but I think the continual pain had to accumulate to a tipping point where ones patience and threshold for discomfort becomes unbearable. Or maybe it just reached a threshold where my pain no longer could be handled mentally; the tipping point statisticians say.

I think I literally broke down this last Monday. I went to work and cried immediately at my desk, alone in an office occupied. Maybe it was the medicine messing with my head, maybe it was just too damn much!

While it did appear to stop growing by Tuesday, the bad ass pain at night was peaking. Tuesday night (I think my memory got shot) I swear my skin was peeled off when I got out of bed, 330 AM. Last night at 130 AM, I felt a thousand needles coming out of my skin, although I would say I am 50% healed now. Mentally though, yesterday, I was a fucking disaster. But now at night it’s different. Pinhead from Hellraiser visits me, ‘what’s my pleasure.”

Even my regular skin just felt prickly last night. I awoke last night just to stand for 10 minutes and hold on to my suspension rig. I was afraid and too tired to go to the shower, I probably should have. So while my scars fade, and though this it is not a real skin burn like from a fire, I reflect on the bad nights I am having now. I suppose even while I recover, this disease has deeply affected my nerves. Now I know what real nerve pain is. I have been through the numbness of a concussion syndrome and that weird head pain for two years. That I cannot believe I did. I suppose what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And so I see possibly my concussion days, had me conditioned for this short, excruciating event.

Be forewarned, I strongly recommending getting the vaccine for this, once you are old enough. You will be sorry if you read this and wait for your turn. Unless of course, you like Pinhead?!