More than a month ago, I fell ill. I was having high fever along with chills and nausea. The symptoms were indicative of Malaria, so the doctor prescribed me antimalarial medicine.
Despite completing the three day course of the medicine, the fever was not ready to leave me. It kept coming back after a short of taking paracetamol. Along with it, I was having vomiting on which oral medicine was not affective. As soon as I would eat something, the food would immediately come out.
I visited the doctor again. He prescribed me oral antibiotics and an injection to alleviate the persistent vomiting. Though the prescribed medicine made me feel better, but I experienced the feelings I never had in my entire life.
The injection was administered in my left arm. When I woke up the next morning, I experienced a kind of numbness around the band of the arm where the injection was administered. The tactile sensation in the area reduced to a great extent.
It was not the first time that I took this (or several other) injections, so it is quite unlikely to suggest that the injection itself was responsible for the numbness.
If the numbness retained to that area of the arm, I will not be amazed. However, there was another bizarre thing that happened. As the day proceeded, the feeling of numbness spread to my whole body, from head to toe.
It was not like that I was not feeling anything but the intensity of tactile feeling was reduced to a great extent. The touch on any part of the body was feeling like I was touched above several layers of blanket; or like I was in the middle of an inflated balloon and the touch was reaching to me encountering the resistance of air in its way.
I had a feeling like I did not even have any internal organ. For instance, whenever there is a burp or fart the body’s internal organs feel the sensation when the thing is on its way out of the body. I had zero sensation. Likewise, deep breathing is sensed by internal organs but my body was unable to perceive any such thing.
Whenever we have a pain in one part of the body, the entire body feels its effects, doesn’t it? What happened to me is that the sense of the pain in any part of the body was localised in a way as if the surrounding area was totally disconnected; as if the body was divided into chunks blocked by barriers.
Along with the reduction in tactile perceptivity, the perception of taste also reduced. Sweet, sour or salty, everything was feeling less intense.
Interesting is the thing that the reduction in sensation was not limited to the matter (physical body), but I became less reactive and receptive emotionally. For instance, the circumstances and situations that are normally stress producing for me were unable to produce any feeling.
Though the experience was worrisome for some reasons , I felt an amazing level of lightness in me. I literally felt like I was flying in the air akin to a light weight dandelion.
I felt more lighter emotionally too. I think the absence of negative feeling let the positive make their effect.
The numbness persisted for a long time. Nearly a month. Quite long after I recovered from the illness.
An interesting aspect of the reduction in numbness is that it was linked to the gradual emergence of sensation around the arm band.
One day, I started feeling the pain at the spot where the injection was administered. It was nearly after two weeks of the administration. However, the surrounding area was still not very perceptive. After a few more days, I felt the pain in the surrounding area too. In other words, the tactile perception increased.
As I was able to feel the touch more on that arm, my entire body was turning more towards normal state of tactile perception.
The gradual emergence of tactile sensation (in the form of pain) around the arm band caused the gradual reduction of sensational numbness in the entire body.
It has been more than six weeks since the injection was administered, there is a pain in the arm. As per my prior experiences, the pain of the injection doesn’t persist for so long a time.
I am not sure what was the reason for the experience. Perhaps it was some blockage in some veins or muscles of the arm responsible for tactile perception (I don’t know if such a thing is discovered or exists), or some parasite in the body, or the medicine, or the combination of several factors.
I just know this that the encountered experience was one of its kind; an occurrence entirely novel in the scope of my life. The truth is that explanation cannot capture the kind of feeling I underwent. It was like a flavour that I tasted.
I am eager to know if someone else has also gone through such an experience? What triggered it? How long it persisted? The comment section is open.........
Image by Anemone123 from pixabay.com.