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.
