Saturday 19 March 2016

#10 - Conquer my needle phobia - Treatment proceeding...

After my week babysitting my syringe and practicing the Applied Tension Technique exercises I'd been taught, by the time I attended my next appointment I was comfortable with the syringe, and it no longer triggered me.  However, common sense dictated what was coming next.  I'd had a breakthrough that week, and I told John that I'd been watching Casualty - as my young son loves it - and the character had to have her arm cut open in the A&E department.  Now, I know, you know, it's not real, but to someone with the disorder I have, it doesn't matter.  Real, implied, it doesn't matter.  I was watching the procedure with great interest for a good five or six seconds before I checked myself, and thought 'Huh?'.  I looked at Mr G, who was smiling at me.  'I wasn't going to say anything,' he told me.  Ordinarily the moment that its implied that there's going to be blood, I look away, and he has to tell me when it's 'safe' to look again.  He was waiting for me to ask, and I didn't.  So, that was a major breakthrough.

I was right, what was coming next was a sharp.  Not only that, but I had to assemble it myself.  I assembled the needle in the office, placed the safety cap on and I have had to play with it, open it, look at it, touch my skin with it.  I have also had to watch as many medical dramas as possible, really expose myself to the things I find uncomfortable.  My observations are that the needle doesn't look as I expected it to, it was almost quill shaped.  The barrel only contains 1ml of liquid, that's a fifth of a teaspoon.  You'd think there'd be loads in there, wouldn't you?  And when it came to watching Casualty last weekend, not a drop of blood was spilled that episode.  However, the next night, I got something better.  I got real life.

Mr G had to go into hospital with excruciating pain on Sunday.  When I visited him on the Sunday evening, there was an old man in the next bed, very disorientated.  We didn't notice, but he'd pulled his canula out.  A nurse spotted him, there was a bit of a commotion, and I looked.  Blood everywhere.  I could feel my head start to swim, and so I assumed the position and did the ATT and within about three minutes, I'd got everything and myself feeling normal again.  That was a phenomenal achievement on my part.  I had to cancel my next appointment earlier this week, as it would have been a long bus journey, and I didn't want to leave Mr G a day after he'd been operated on, so it's been rearranged for next week.  Another breakthrough to tell John about, I think he's going to be pleased with that one.

That's where I'm up to at the moment.  A bit nervous as to what could possibly be coming next, but a major, major improvement all the same.

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