The hell they won't tell

So we're all familiar with how painful a laser session can be, even though that could be attenuated by topical or injected local anesthetics. What I didn't know was how painful (mentally and physically) the days following a session are. I'm removing a huge black tattoo on my forearm and went through session 2 last week and really, it couldn't be worse. I have the swelling, redness and all the other things which sucks, but the hardest part is the fact that, in the last fee months, I was kind of forcing myself to wear short sleeves here or there, but with the huge laser inflammation, I just cannot uncover my tattoo, specially at work. I'm a medical resident studying to become an anesthesiologist and very often I found myself in situations in which I need to uncover my arms the get them properly cleaned for a procedure, and it's been a week now since I'm not able to perform my resident tasks, which makes me feel useless, incompetent, ugly and a fraud. I'm covering it up all the time again with long sleeves, not being able to work properly and all my feelings of regret came back all at once. I'm wreck right now. I just hope all of this one day will pass.