The Lipan Episode

Warning : Long-ass post.

According to Wiki, a lipan is this creature.

According to me, it is an evil, sinister, creepy, critter from hell. HELL, I tell you. And I'm an authority on this matter because on December 29th of 2008, a lipan bit me on my thumb. 

Allow me to illustrate my previous statement.

This,

Fudging bit my thumb.

What Happened.

On a peaceful December 29th night, the whole clan was back in Temerloh, hanging out at our pad, chilling. Even though we each have our bedrooms, everybody preferred to sleep outside. We would spread comforters and duvets and inflatable mattresses on the floor and just slumber-party'ed around the living room and the family room. My spot is in front of the TV in the family room. Great spot, that. 

So, it was (not quite) the night before Chrismas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. I was asleep and my sister next to me was too. It was around midnight when I felt something between my toes on my left feet, drowsily I reached down and tried to brush it off with my right hand when IT happened.

The most excrutiating pain I've ever felt. Ever. Pain like you wont believe. White hot pain just coursing through my thumb. Numbing everything else but the shocking burning sensation throbbing at my right thumb. One moment I was asleep, the next, I was in serious, serious pain. 

Of course, instantly jerked awake by pain didn't help me figuring out what was happening. Woke my sister up with my quasi-scream of alarm. Still didn't really understand what happened. Woke everyone up after I switched on the lights and saw the 2 puncture wounds oozing blood on my thumb. No one was any help nor knew what to do because no one knew what just happened. But after carefully flipping through our beddings, my sister saw the red centipede and dad smashed it with a handy length of wood we keep around the house for situations such as this. When I say smashed, I mean, pulverised. I think it was 17 feet long and 5 inches wide. My sister said it was only 4 inches long. Whatever. She lies a lot.

All this happened in less than 10 minutes after I got stung.

All this while I was blubbering in the room, cradling my thumb and just crying my eyes out from the pain.

It was that bad. 

Clueless and hopeless (there was only Minyak Cap Kapak in the house, for real, y'all), dad drove me to the emergency room at Temerloh Hospital in 7 minutes flats. Props for pops. I was groaning in the backseat the whole way. Not so much crying anymore, but shivering with cold and clutching my thumb and just wishing the pain would go away. Okay, maybe I also whimpered some. I remembered thinking, if this is this bad, giving birth would be murder. Odd, but true.

The E.R at Hospital Temerloh did an admirable job admitting my sorry ass immediately upon arrival. Joy upon joy, a lipan bite was enough to be considered an emergency case and I was promptly ushered to a treatment room. At this point, I was more than ready to scream the mantra that's been in my head the moment I saw the Hospital's front gate, "Gimme the good stuff now. Make the pain go away!". 

They jabbed me three times (one on my shoulder, one on my butt and another through a drip on the back of my hand). The pain lessen (a tad) and after all the jabs, I was in pain and feeling nauseous. Well done. The rest of the hospital visits passed in a blur. My sister took care of the administrative stuff and I got called to see a doctor properly after a short wait (which none I remembered except discovering one of the doctors were my high school friend, Aisyah. I don't really remember the meeting except my sister told me I was lucid enough to be sarcastic to her when she asked me what I was doing there. Good to know)

We returned home and I snuggled next to my mom and tossed and turned a while (2 hours) in misery. I was still in pain and the painkiller didn't really help. Lying down wasn't helping so I walked around the house for a while (2 hours!), half asleep from the drugs and bumping into furnitures. I finally managed to fall asleep and woke up the next morning at 7 am for my Subuh prayers with zero pain. None! Other than the swollen thumb, last night could be just a dream. A very excruciating, painful nightmare, mind you but still.

The thumb after the night's episode:

The swelling went down in a couple of days and life proceeded as it should, unperturbed.

Or so I thought..

The Aftermath

A week afterwards, my normal size right thumb has only 2 small marks to show for the December 29th episode. I was more than happy to show my battle scars to friends and wallow in the 'awe and amazement' of surviving such strife (it could as easily be 'horror and disgust' but I like being delusional). Then the thumb started to itch. Bad. Because there were no discerning surface area that actually itched (just the whole thumb in general) my method of scratching the itch was by gripping the whole thumb in my left fist and rotate. 

And then the swelling began again. A visit to the doctor confirmed that the immediate swelling on the night was due to the toxin, but this time, this swelling was because of the infection. Hooray, right?

How long did it take for the swelling to go down this time?

2 fricking weeks, people.

2 weeks of mismatched thumbs.

Left thumb, meet right thumb on steroids.

Of itchy, swollen digit.

Gatal macam you wont believe, weh.

Of weirdness happening to the bitemarks.

I call this color pallate: the Rainbow of a Festering Wound. Tres chic, non?

Changes color according to my mood. Like a mood ring. Only not. And itches more. Shit, it itched.

Of medications to avoid more weirdness to happen.

Orange, strawberry, pineapple, mint and green apple flavored pills. I eat them counter clockwise.

I tried to keep a picture record but more often than not, I pretend my original right thumb was away for a while and I was stuck with a replacement thumb on loan temporarily. I would try to get to know the loan unit better but I longed for the day my original thumb would return to me.

Azura visiting from Manjung, Perak filling in until original thumb gets back from her skiing trip in Vancouver.

And of course, I couldn't leave a festering scab alone. So this would naturally happen when I picked and prod the stupid swollen wound.

How awesomely gruesome is this?

But after a while, like all good things, it has to come to an end.

A sure sign of being on a road to recovery when I can now bend my thumb. Yay thumb.

The conclusion

What I take from this whole experience are:

a. my current pain threshold register (sharp 36% decline since early 2000);

b. my understanding of government hospital procedures;

c.  instant goosebumps whenever I remembered the sheer, unadultrated pain I went through;

d. innate fear of giving birth (tabik ah para ibu); and

e. anti-spokesperson on the evilness of lipans, we should never underestimate these nasty crawlies.

I like to think I came out of this experience a wiser, more cautious person. That was why I took this picture during the next lipan encounter I had at the same Temerloh pad last month. What is with all these lipans in Temerloh, you asked? No idea, Fred. But we have 2 less than we did before, that I know.

Real live lipan, temporarily stunned by obscene amount of insectide sprayed upon it. Real live unpedicured toes belonging to me stupidly close within striking distance just so you can have a measuring basis. 15 seconds later what was left of this lipan was enough to be washed down the sink. Revenge, it is indeed most sweet.

-END-