How do you heal a wound you've not recognised?

 My aunt told a story of someone who was shot at Ijesha market but ran all the way home to Lawanson without realising he'd been shot. He fainted when a family member pointed out the gunshot wound to him. It got me thinking: what if no one had pointed the wound out to him, what would have happened?
I recalled a personal incident that occurred on my matriculation day; after the whole formalities at the senate building, I got on a bike-bikes were our only means of transportation within and without the school environs, well unless you had your personal car which I didn't obviously- when we got on the short bridge over the infamous Otamiri river that we were constantly being warned never to venture near as it had the capacity to recognise non indigenes and whisk them away,the bike had a head on collision with a car.

At first I thought my head had been severed from my body, I was guessing my body was somewhere else going on its own because I couldn't feel it. Too much Tom and Jerry influence probably. Anyway, the driver of the car came out to fight the bike man and there was a raucous of noise. I touched my head gingerly and it was still there and I felt fine, normal, so I got back on the same bike that had almost ended my undergraduate journey before it began. I think I was in slow motion till I got to the hostel. Didn't speak to anyone, got on my bunk and slept immediately. A roomie woke me and asked why I was sleeping on my matric day while the fun was going on outside, that was when I broke out in cold sweat and fever, I was shivering so much I thought the up bunk will fall off. Thankfully, she left after the appropriate 'sorry o' when I said I wasn't feeling good. But then her question made me cry and rehash the whole incident in my head. What if she had not woken me and asked the question? Would I have cried? I'm supposedly a strong girl, I've often heard people refer to me as "ice goddess"

Therein lies my point.

Recently I've come across some 'strong people' who are so tightly coiled they're almost brittle. I recognise some of them because it seems like i'm looking at aspects of myself in them. Living in an environment where strength is expected of you has its perks and challenges like Ignoring all forms of pain.
In pharmacology we learnt about a group of hormone-like lipid compounds that have important functions in the animal body. Prostaglandins. They sensitize the spinal neurons to pain and transmit information to the brain amid a whole lot of other functions. They ring the alarm bell to let us know something is wrong so we can handle it. However,a particular drug, Aspirin which is often used as an analgesic to relieve minor aches and pains, as an antipyretic to reduce fever, and also used long-term, at low doses, to help prevent heart attacks, strokes, and blood clot formation blocks the pathway of Prostaglandins synthesis. This is a good thing as pain is not felt, but, continued long use of it can cause non-stop bleeding as it stops blood from clotting altogether which is another kettle of fish.