I am aware of the pain before I am aware of anything else.
It is everywhere and it is specific at the same time, which should not be possible but apparently is. Every muscle in my body feels like it has been taken apart and put back together by someone who was working from memory and got most of it right but not all of it.
My spine aches in a way that has no comparison in my experience of aching. My hands are their own separate disaster — the scrapes from the kitchen wall have been cleaned and wrapped but the throbbing goes deeper than the surface, bone-deep, and every time I shift even slightly on the bed the whole situation worsens.
I do not shift. I stay very still and I stare at the ceiling of the ward and I breathe through it.
Four counts in. Four counts out.
