A Treasure Found at Home

when i was little i had no fear of needles or medical procedures at all. i would watch the doctor give me booster shots and wonder only where all that liquid in the syringe could possibly go without making a bubble on my arm.

that all changed when i was five. popular theory at the time stated that if you told kids what would happen to them when they had medical procedures it would only scare them. so everything that happened to me that day in the hospital was a surprise, painful, scary, and so traumatic that i developed a real phobia of anything which might puncture or cut my skin and (to my mind) invade my body.

i’ve tried on and off over the years to address the issue. hypnosis, imagining a shot was already over and went well, sedatives, changing the way i think about needles, learning to use knives better… nothing seemed to work.

recently i started going to an acupuncturist, which seems odd all things considered. she’s spent a lot of time doing acupressure for me, giving me needles to take home and look at, giving me herbs, and letting me watch her put needles in her arm. last week i put the needle in her arm.

and this week…

i put a needle in my leg!

EDIT: this got stuck in the drafts folder and was never posted.

i know i haven’t written in for-evah, but life has been… let’s just say there has been a lot to think about. stuff going on at work that i’m not to talk about, a minor car accident, my parents visited, and today i’m going for a check up for all that medical stuff that was going on this winter.

i stayed with flo last night so i’d be closer to my appointment. she’s flying out today, so i agreed to get up a little early and take her to the ‘plane station’. unfortunately, the pager started going off at 3:10 this morning. blah, meh, grrrr. so here i am at an early opening cafe restarting the server in a second bid to make this system page stop. i restarted the server it’s trying to talk to, hoping that would fix the problem w/out disturbing anyone’s work, to no avail. me vs. the servers: round 2.

i’m sleepy still and my mind is all over the place. i’m thinking of all the email i haven’t sent to anyone. if i owe you an email, you’re not alone.

for instance, dov asked about strep and the heart valves. certainly i don’t have any symptoms of weakened heart valves now, but the natural progression of untreated strep is that it ends up in your heart valves and weakens them. over time (several illnesses) they can be weakened enough to become a problem if you ever have other heart issues. at least, that’s the way i understand it.

ok, really i’m at *$’s. no surprise, they’re everywhere! i got this same “The Way I See It” a few weeks ago and laughed out loud in the parking lot as i read it. i got some funny looks, i tell you what. anyhow TWISI # 225:

People don’t read enough. And what reading we do is cursory, without absorbing the subtleties and nuances that lie deep within –Wow, you’ve stopped paying attention, haven’t you? People can’t even read a coffee cup without drifting off.

–David Shore Creator and executive producer of the television drama House.

keen, server’s up and pager’s silent! i win!