To-day the author Ira Bex would like to share with you the readers of the world this free story: “Living With Needles…” Written by Ira Bex aka: Ron B. Williams t was early evening when I arrive at my local watering-hole on my way home from the outside commercial world; and before heading for the saloon bar fronted the club members’ semi-automatic registration kiosk to claim my daily loyalty points on my attendance plastic card – across the room a member caught my eye whom I only really knew from a distance and we acknowledged each other out of common decency. But by the time I was halfway through my plastic’s registration he had arrived in the vicinity and was almost breathing down my neck with his kiosk plastic card in-hand; oh, I might add he already had a schooner of beer in his free paw which was almost already down to the halfway mark. I continued with my registration and my heavy breathing associated broke into my concentration with a rather personal type of question... “Howdy,” said the drifter from back of me. “Good day mate,” I responded in an effort to be friendly – here in Australia if you are not on the warpath, then everyone you meet is your mate, so to speak. I had already struck a snag in trying to recall whether or not we’d even been officially introduced and no name flashed to mind – by now the kiosk had concluded scanning my plastic membership card, and I removed it from range of the digital computer’s scan beam. I also took my printed receipt when it partly emerged from the disposal orifice as my wee grey cells still striving through my brain’s filing system to locate the friendly fellow’s name. But no neon glow came to life up there amongst my brain’s hoarded trash of knowledge; I would be lying if I didn’t admit that this inadequacy I was experiencing made me feel at a disadvantage, in his presence. But Hallelujah, he came to the fore and let me slip off the hook into a much more comfort zone. “Where’s ya wife, not here, tonight?” Those six words made me realize that we obviously operated within the club on neutral grounds so I decided to be more open with him – well, he clearly knew Olga and respected her enough to be inquisitive about her, so, I opened up. “In downtown Melbourne – she’ll get all anxious if I’m not waiting just outside the platform’s gate on cue.” I’d snatched a quick look at the saloon bar’s clock so that I could estimate how much time I had up my sleeve and whether I might be able to relax apiece – the stranger had meanwhile taken an almost silent mouthful of Draught beer from his schooner glass as he turned away from the kiosk, his piece of plastic in transit back to his possession – I knew the brand of hops my associated was drinking was Carlton, a brew I am sometimes a bit drawn too on a sweltering hot day – its odour having its own distinction and not just because the glass had been branded with the Carlton Brewery’s immaculate logo in a place on the vessel where it would have a greater advantage of pulling off its intended chore. That of commercially advertising its place in accepted company. From our distance I’d signalled the barkeep at the back of the counter for my usual. Coke an’ ouzo – one per day being a man’s limit and this had to be taken without my wife being present, otherwise it was a no, no. Reluctantly I went for my wallet to get a banknote to pay for my purchase – I say reluctantly because I don’t really like strangers to know where one keeps the money on my person – this feeling grew in intensity because as I moved in the counter’s direction my friend from the members’ kiosk began to trail me from a position now a step away to my rear. “They tell me that you’re a Diabetic?” The heckles on my neck reacted in a dogmatic gesture; I was sort of perturbed how come people were discussing my health behind my back and who the hell they might be! But at the same time I realized enough people I was associated with here at the club knew I was another one of the growing band of Diabetics in the world, which had now reached a point whereby it was alarming the medical professionals by its growing intensity, so denial didn’t come into it. “Yes,” I muttered as both I and my drink breasted the counter as one and I laid my ten dollar banknote on the surface of the bar top-towelling, to cover the drink’s cost and the barman, Max London, took its possession and deposited it in the cash register’s drawer and returned the correct change to one’s self. I realized the bar’s towelling was a touch wet from absorbing prior spillage of other drinks as I took up my drink. “How long have you been, diabetic?” Damned, looks like this bloke is settling in to give me the ruddy third degree, I thought as I answered him truthfully: “It would be all of twenty-three years ago, now – Yes twenty-three years last birthday.” My enquirer had drunk the last of his vessel’s draught beer and was in the process of placing the empty schooner glass on the bar’s towel as he hit me with a loaded question. “So, are you injectin’ yourself, then?” “Yes, I’ve been injecting myself with insulin these past nineteen years twice a day. Before breakfast, an’ tea-time; Or as they say in America – supper.” “How do ya do it?” asked the drinker whom had partnered me across to the bar and London saw to it that my associate got a fresh schooner of Draught with a frothy collar. By this time my college had readied himself to make the money exchange between the pair of them as I turned my back to the bar and gazed out over the room, taking in the popular gaming machines being fed with coins and believe it if you will, but two machines were actually spiting gold coins into their collection trays for the suckers whom had been coerced by the gambling trade gimmicks, into playing them. But my concern wasn’t for those players who seemed to have appeared on collecting end of the legalised forum but was for an upholstered vacant armchair which bordered the six coffee tables occupying the open spaces between the islands of gaming machines – these seats were as scarce as hen’s teeth at the best of times, and with one’s chronic back pain from pinched nerves, it was important that I get an armchair – it frustrates me seeing people who aren’t carrying pain occupying the chairs just because they felt it their lot when not at the long-legged chairs in front of a gaming machine – two armchairs became free at a table only four strides away from the bar and I set off in their direction with my conversation buddy on my tail, me with my ouzo an’ coke and he with his schooner of draught. As I homed in on the armchair I’d targeted, I accepted that I had scored the Carlton draught drinker as an appendage as he asked: “Should a diabetic be drinking ouzo an’ coke?” His question clawed at my inners for once you’ve got diabetes you enter a world laced with taboos and rationings – it’s never a normal lifestyle from here on you’re going to be living and you’ve got to make the best of it. “There two types of diabetes you know,” I said over my shoulder …” I struck my shin on the edge of the table as I settled in the armchair and placed my drink on the drink coaster so I could give my shin a vigorous rub to try preventing being the recipient of a discoloured bruise. I also went on with what I had begun to tell my drinking partner. “They’re referred to as type one and type two.” He looked at me with goo-goo eyes. “Type one is usually a person who has been diagnosed with diabetes from birth and type two is ‘on set’ diabetes which comes along with the onset of age. Both types of diabetes are dangerous and generally need to be controlled with insulin injections – though in some cases Type Two diabetes can be controlled by tablets, and even cured.” I reached for my glass from the coaster.”Why, have you been diagnosed with diabetes – you look to be in the right age group for Type Two?” (He clearly was around my age. ) “No, not yet – it’s just that a friend of mine has been recently picked up as Type Two, and now, he has to inject himself and I was wonderin’ what it’s like in practice. I couldn’t imagine being able to jab a needle into myself – “Are you afraid of the pain of a needle? – That’s all part of the diabetic business you know?” I was quick off the mark with that question, because this is the general fear with giving oneself any sort of injection, the jab.” But when I transferred my attention from the wet rim of my glass to his face, I saw that he was now wearing a foam moustache from his beer froth and didn’t appear to be aware of its presence, he was making no attempt at removing it. “How many times per day do you inject yourself; I can’t recall if I’ve asked you that question already?” “It doesn’t matter but I have to do it twice – in the mornings and right after tea, before bed.” “How can you bring yourself to do it twice in the one day?” “How? It’s just something that’s gotta be done – the same as I have to take what amounts a day’s cocktail of tablets an’ capsules –” “Are they all due to ya diabetes – these capsules’ n tablets?” “Nah. I have other health issues, too. But if you do happen to get caught up in this diabetes racket and you are placed on insulin; you’ll have to make up ya mind that needles are going to be part of your twenty-four hour a day lifestyle. “So you’ll just have to knuckle down to it and conquer your fear of needles because once you’re in that game you cannot afford to be a sook. Insulin simply has to be taken and there’s no way around it … the needles aren’t any real drama when you measure it up against ya illness. Somethin’ about shooting up with ya insulin though which all diabetics should know or realise is that you’ve gotta remember that – an’ this is hard to believe – but when injecting yourself you must regularly switch ya injection site pretty much daily.” “Why’s that?” “Constant piercing the skin or muscle in the one area will make that point of injection harden into a lump and of course it then becomes much more difficult to administer the insulin dose when required – so you’ve gotta remember to move off line at times from your previous sites. I generally work the tops of my thighs, switching to a different leg each time – this allows the skin tissue and muscle damage to recover from each needle invasion and thus avoids hardening of same. In my case I have a good pain threshold but believe me it’s easier to do than you realize. First, the gauge of the needles, are very slender and barb, free. Plus, with diabetes comes certain areas of ya body which experience a growing numbness – giving blood for a full blood examination is more distressing than having my daily insulin – but anyway what the Hell, put you off needles?” “Back when I was a kid a nurse gave me a needle and it broke off in my leg. The doctor had to come in and dig it out or actually open up my leg until he could get in there with tweezes and pull it out – now whenever anyone suggests a needle for me I squirm with the thought of it! Anyway when you give yourself these needles do you have to put it in the same hole as that of previous, or do you use the principle as near as you can get it – that must be hard to judge?” “There are needle sites which make it a little easier than you might think. But you do have to vary the sites, believe it or not, giving yourself needles in the same place encourages the skin and flesh to harden and this makes injection yourself that much more difficult. Once diagnosed a diabetic, like it or not needles are going to be a fact of life for you. You see, you’ve got to make daily blood tests and getting the blood for such tests means you’ve got to prick yer finger tips with sterile lancets and carefully place the droplet of blood on the target area of a blood glucose test strip. So between pricking yourself with a lancet and giving yourself insulin injections on a daily basis, you either over come yer apprehension of needles or, spend the rest of your life wrestling fear, ‘cause until they find a cure for the disease you’ll be stuck with your phobia – like it or not.” I then lowered the level of my vessel’s mixture of ouzo ‘n’ coke before returning the glass to the coaster on the table. “Who told you I was a diabetic?” I asked. My unknown friend polished off his beer before answering my question. “Ashleigh Costa.” Now that name was like a red rag to a bull for me – Costa had threatened to knock my lights out over a joke I told to a crowd of players at a bingo gathering about a month ago – do you know I must admit being more fearful of his threat than I am of getting my daily jabs of needles. Fear, and that of one’s reaction to it, is puzzling I guess; In some ways we all have our own depths of phobia when it comes to pain – I am more than ready to take pain from a quack, a nurse, and their instruments in remedial care than the pain of a ‘knuckle sandwich’– clearly what’ll put fear into one person, seems to pass right over head of another – and vice-versa. What I have never ever been able to come to terms with is how instinctively one feels confident that they can threaten someone with violence and at the same time be confident that they are going to be an overwhelming success as an administrator of their chore without having tested the strength and ability of their opposition? I’ve never been able to make that snap judgment in my whole existence to date. Because in general I am a might too passive and I suppose it must show in my body language and the demeanour of my facial features? But on the very few times I have been caught up in physical fracas with no way out of the situation I have come out on top of my adversary, and don’t know why – whether it’s because of my weak image my inner self projects or my physic, I don’t know but the undeniable truth seems to camouflage what is buried down there under the surface, a somewhat sneaky cruel dangerous nature, which until now, has served in my favour and bodily protection – this I fully realised to be a dangerous trait for those getting involved with me on a threatening level; for I seemed to recognise and fully appreciating its dangerous and maybe uncontrollable liability – maybe I subconsciously keep that side of me under wraps because I’m afraid of its core explosive power and am fearful of what’s going to be unleashed – sorry, I just don’t know my inner self. The silence which had laps between me and the club members with a confessed needle phobia must have given him the impression that I didn’t wanna him to spend more time with me or then again he might have felt that my answers to his questions weren’t productive enough for him; so he made an excuse to vacate his chair by placing his empty schooner glass back on the table coaster. “You’ll have to excuse me – but seems I’ve a call comin’ in from my bladder!” “Be my guest,” I said as I glanced across at the saloon bar’s clock and noticed by its display – that one had to seriously consider making a move down to the car park and begin tracks up to that railway station if I wanted to crack it for a parking bay, before the places therein have been overwhelmed by parking demands of the public. “And let me just say before I go, you’ve got a damned lotta guts to be able to inject yourself day after day with them needles and lancets – I takes my hat off to you, I really do!” “Yes? Well maybe if you knew me more intimately you’d have a different opinion.” “Oh, I doubt it,” He said as he momentarily worked a cramp out of his right knee before we parted company. A time check spooked me into deciding it was getting close to be making tracks to the railway station and I heaved myself up from the chair and headed towards the club’s exit but still had to pause to wait on the automatic glass door to respond to my presence as I stepped into its radar beam; I savoured the lingering taste of the ouzo and coke from my tongue and pictured myself enjoying another one later. Coming up the carpeted staircase from the underground parking facilities was my enemy of the hour – Ashleigh Costa. Our eyes met and I made sure I was wearing a passive mask because I wanted no trouble with Costa but I swear I noticed a hesitancy pass through his body from the movement of his eyes and his propelling movement of his body as we were about to pass – the thought shot through my mind that he readied himself for some sort of physical action against him – like that of a push or a punch on the empty stairs free of any possible witnesses who might be able to vouch for Costa that I had attacked him; but the thought of all this going through his mind was enough satisfaction for me – though I did know in truth that my inner self really wasn’t above deliverance of such action – for only I would know how close to something like that was to becoming a reality and if he could never be sure of when or if ever I would strike out of the blue then that was almost satisfaction enough for me – you’ve gotta be thankful of small mercies for the unknown knowledge of just when the blade of that guillotine’s going to drop has as much an facilitating effect on the nerves as that of the physical act of the fallen blade – this in itself will have a linger issue though it will dissipate in time; But certainly not before the victim’s suffering has run the gauntlet of its course I suspect and hoped … THE END PN: The writer of this short story is also diabetic Type 2.
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 18:29:28 +0000
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