Sleep Deprivation

The other night I was playing touch football and some idiot on the other team managed to pretty much stomp on my big toe with his tags. It hurt like all hell. Right on the nail. And I figured it's one of those things that hurts for a bit and then goes away pretty quickly. Wrong! I got home and it's still throbbing like those cartoons where someone's thumb gets hit with a hammer. The first thing was how shit it is to get "injured" playing touch football. I would have been a lot more at ease had it been actual football. The second thing was I couldn't believe how much pain I was in just from having my toe stomped on. So I iced it a bit and then went to bed.

When I said I was in a lot of pain, I'm not trying to exaggerate it here. It's not as though I've got a bullet wound or anything. The difference was the throbbing aspect. I could take my pulse just from the painful stabs in my toe. And that was enough to prevent me from going to sleep at all that night. I'm not joking, I did not sleep for a single minute.

It occurred to me at that point just how enormously lonely and lengthy night time can feel when you're by yourself, not drinking beers and actually trying to get to sleep. I think if you were to sit at traffic lights for 8 hours the time would still seem to pass more quickly. And all because of a stupid toe. How?

The second thing was that at about 3am, when I'd been trying to sleep for the past 4 hours, I started wondering exactly what I would contemplate doing just to get back to normal. It's sort of like when you're sick, you promise yourself just how much more you'd appreciate being well if you could only just get better. Normal is underrated. The tiny things, like not having an inflamed toe, are the things that are awesome.

The third thing was just how crap it is to "wake up" after not having any sleep whatsoever. And unlike other times in the past where I couldn't sleep properly but would have scraped in at least a couple of hours sleep, that night I literally got zero hours.

Anyway that's my whinge for the day. But the most extraordinary thing for me was how something seemingly so small, like a sore toe, could interfere so much with my normal daily operations.