Gruesome! My dad had a small abscess once, not nearly as bad as the one you were describing, and I was in the room when the doctor was lancing and draining it. His pain was excruciating, despite the local anesthetic.

At some point over my years of acquiring useless random knowledge, I've heard that the reason the pain can be so bad is that high fluid pressure in abscesses keeps the anesthetic from infiltrating the diseased tissue and even healthy tissue in the immediate vicinity. Fluids are trying so hard to push out in all directions that they won't let anything else in.

Which I guess you found out!