Done

I remained surprisingly calm yesterday, up until about 3 pm, where I started to get a bit jittery. I had a cuddle from Mr G, and we set off quite early to the surgery, taking into account traffic, roadworks on the bridge etc. We arrived a good 25 minutes before my appointment was due and waited in the car park. 

When I was waved in by the volunteer, she said that Mr G could come in with me - which put me at ease further. I sat down in the chair with him opposite me, and as I was confirming my date of birth to the nurse on the PC, I was uttering the words 'nineteen seventy six' as I felt the male nurse press something onto my arm. The plaster.

"Done." he said.

"Give over." I replied. 

I genuinely didn't know that it had been done. So when people are saying you don't feel it - it is the gospel truth. Not a scratch, not a sting, not a thing. I was in shock. I didn't swoon, or faint, and I was able to walk back to the car unassisted. I was on cloud nine. 

However...

Things took a tiny turn for the worse, as my body decided that it wasn't letting me get away with being brave, and smug, and proud of myself, and I had a full blown panic attack ten minutes later, in the car, about two minutes drive from home. I wanted to put my head between my knees but thought better of it, in case Mr G had to slam on and killed me. I was in a cold sweat, I couldn't see properly, all I could see was white lights like stars. I felt sick. I had pins and needles in my left arm. We parked up outside the house until I felt able to move, and I went straight in and lay on the bed with my eyes closed for ten minutes. After that? Felt fine. I cooked tea for us all. Had to have an early night, I was in bed for 7.40 pm, but I think that was more to do with the 4.30 am wake up call that morning. Today, so far, so good, touch wood, I still feel fine. No nausea, no headache, no tiredness, no fever, not even the soreness in the arm that I was warned about. However, it hasn't even been 24 hours yet, so I'm keeping a watchful eye, and taking paracetamol as a precautionary measure. 

When we were home, I was talking about the panic attack with Mr G as I cooked dinner. I was a bit cross that I'd been able to have the injection, react so wonderfully to it, walk out of there and then for it to happen, inexplicably, ten minutes later. It was like I'd blindsided my brain, and the panic attack was running after me down the road, shouting 'Come on lads, after her! She's getting away, she's had the injection without us! She owes us one!'

So, we've decided that for the second jab, what we will do is stay in the car park. I'll get into the back of the car and lie down immediately for about fifteen minutes. Hopefully now that I've had a positive experience with a needle, I won't need to work myself up beforehand. And if I do have a funny turn again, at least this time we won't be mobile in a car. I'm hoping that positive experiences will reinforce positive experiences - just in the same way that the negative ones which initially triggered this condition for me, did in the past. 

He still managed to have a laugh at my expense ;-) 

We've decided to take two days off from the walking, because even though I feel perfectly fine right now, I might not stay like this, plus Mr G's knee is really sore too after our mammoth expedition on Wednesday. I've pulled out some beefburgers for our tea, and a pasta bake for tomorrow night. Tomorrow we will have our usual football bet, and our friend who is in our bubble is coming round for a brew. If I'm ok on Sunday, we will go out early and hopefully I'll finish my 100 kilometres then. I need to have a look on Strava if there's anything similar lined up for April.  

Stay Local ends tomorrow in Wales, so no doubt we will have an influx of people here visiting the beaches, especially over half term. I have no interest in doing that, but it will be nice not to be confined to where we can walk to, not having to start and end on foot from our own front door.

One down, one to go :-) One step closer to the new normal, although it looks like we will have to live with this for the rest of our lives. One step closer to a rugby match, one step closer to a pint of Wrexham lager (and the new Bootlegger, too), one step closer to meeting up with people we haven't seen for ages, one step closer to maybe a barbecue with a select few this summer. It's lifted my spirits immensely :-) And most of all, it adds an extra layer of protection for my elderly husband, Mr G. He will kill me if/when he reads this. That's his payback for picturing me as a sloth Pokemon. Hehe.