Even through the cloak of morphine, this pain is like nothing I’ve felt before. It is many magnitudes worse than reconstitution. It feels as though my skin has been peeled off and coarse salt rubbed into the open wound of my body. My mouth opens in a silent scream. The air is pumped with high doses of bone-girding medication, acrid clouds that sear my trachea. I remain awake, in agony, for hours that stretch into days.
