I'm beginning to wonder about my acupuncturist...
03:27:2003
First, I'd like to say that Dr -u has done more than any other person to improve the quality of my life by bringing my eczema under control. BUT...
I'm beginning to wonder whether to be a really good acupuncturist you have to have a sadistic streak. I mean if you spend your whole day jamming needles into people you'd have to enjoy the work or you'd quit, right? Well Dr -u enjoys it so much she laughs most of the time she's puncturing my 'meridians'. In fact if I flinch due to a particularly painful one she laughs even more -and if I don't seem sufficiently discomforted then she twiddles the freshly inserted needle, asking if I feel anything.
I have had needles put between my eyes, into my upper cheeks, on the top of my head, into my temples, along the ridge where my calves meet my shinbones (which always seem to trigger electric shocks that go right down to the soles of my feet) -and up and down my spine.
Sometimes I try to count the number of needles that go in but usually lose count due to the next one going in. It's normally about 15 to 25 needles. Then she asks if I'm comfortable and leaves me for half an hour or so to ponder my fate and wonder how the hell I'm going to scratch my nose without dislodging or (god help me) pushing in deeper one of the needles in my hand or near my nose.
Anyway, today my 'sadist' theory received a boost when I asked if she'd be sticking needles into my fingertips (see previous blog entry) which were the most painful ones I'd had yet. She said no, as I hadn't been complaining of a sore throat any more. (Mental note- next time I have a sore throat keep quiet and buy some bloody Strepsils.) Anyway we had the following conversation:
DR -U: No, no. No needles in fingertips this time (laughs).
ME: Good.
DR -U: Very painful, the fingertips- yes? (laughs)
ME: Yeah.
DR -U: Fingertips very sensitive! (laughs)
ME: Oh yes.
DR -U: Very painful when they try to make you... when they want you to... I don't know the English word. When they... When you are soldier and they take you and want you to...
ME: (realising what she's getting at): They torture people?
DR -U: Yes! (laughs). They give you pain to make you talk! (laughs)
ME: Well they wouldn't have to stick the needles in my fingertips. They'd just have to threaten me with it and I'd tell them everything. (nervous laugh)
DR -U: (suddenly not laughing) Then you would be traitor!
There was an uncomfortable silence. I felt as if in my attempt at humility I had somehow said the wrong thing and gone down in her estimation. I really hadn't wanted to make some rash boast that I could withstand any amount of needles and not turned Traitor because she might have taken it as a challenge and started ramming them in there and then. She laughed again a little half heartedly and left me alone to allow the needles to unblock my Qi or whatever it is they do. Often (would you believe) I fall asleep for a while with the needles in due to some kind of unexplained effect they have (I tell you this shit works) but this time I remained awake and pondered how well I might stand up under torture.
This is the kind of thing I, and I assume many other people, are thinking about now and then. Thoughts of torture, starvation, being burned alive, blown up, poisoned, shot and having numerous unpleasant things done to you flit in and out of my head almost involuntarily whenever I open a newspaper or switch on the TV. You know that this shit is happening to someone or other and your mind is preparing itself in case it happens to you. I was in Victoria having tea with ---l before going in to Channel 4 for a meeting when we heard an almighty crashing boom which was probably a load of stuff being dumped in a building site. There was a silence and then ---l said 'There goes Westminster'
And the scary thing was it was hardly even a joke.
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