Just a little prick

I’ve got a pink sharpie dot on my right hand, a pink sharpie dot on my left hand and a pink sharpie dot under my big toe in the soft bit. The dots painted by my German Acupuncturist who arrived last Saturday.
I’d had a turn. My dialysis pump had been blocked and after five hours over two days of pumping in saline and other solutions it finally unblocked. Five nurses at the end of the bed punched the air and cheered.
I was able to have dialysis for two hours on Friday afternoon but by the time Saturday arrived I was shredded. Feeling sick and anxious I called 111.
By the time the voice on the other end had has asked me questions I had decided that hospital was not an option even though I felt so ill. The line of questioning included whether I could put my chin on my chest, was I alone and was there someone who could drive me to the hospital.
I hung up. The old git thought I was more anxious than ill so I sat on the swing set in the sunshine and breathed.
I breathed in the air and breathed out my terror.
The German was in Brighton enjoying the sun, having jumped on a bus from Tunbridge Wells.
When she heard my voice she left the pebbles and took the 209 to my door. She felt my pulses, looked at my tongue and told me I was not having a heart attack ( which the register had informed me was about to happen owing to my high potassium) and that even though my kidneys were shot to pieces I was doing well in every other department.

We went out to lunch and then she needled me on my newly upholstered sofa. For two days I thought a red copper leaf was sitting on the seat in fact it was a circle of my very own deep red blood. But I digress.
The German medic treated me then showed me how to needle myself. In the hand to calm the spirit, in the foot to stop fidgety legs.
After much hugging the German left my house, I drove her back to her hotel.
I met her years and years ago when I was referred to her.
The first thing she ever said to me was
‘Don’t you get embarrassed taking your clothes off in front of your husband being quite so fat?’
I didn’t pick her up on her grammar, instead I laughed.
She didn’t.
We became firm friends. In fact the only passover dinner we ever had she was my invited guest. She was the daughter of a Nazi officer and I was the daughter of a Jewish communist. We did in fact see eye to eye.

On Monday I went back to the dry cleaners and when nobody was looking I plunged a needle into the pink sharpie pin point on my left hand. I twiddled and pushed and managed to cope with the last half hour of dialysis – which usually poleaxes me.
Somebody asked me whether I believed in acupuncture.
‘Has nothing to do with belief’ I said. 100 million Chinese swear by it and they’re taking over the world.

My first experience of acupuncture was in 1972. I had been going to Harley Street to have injections in my bum. Number 68 was a very expensive practice where all we young actresses went for weight loss. One shot cost a fortune, you paid your money and got injected with something that stopped the appetite and helped the weight drop off. I was told I was too fat to play the sexy parts so off I went to Harley Street to improve my image. Alongside the injections came little pills. I later found out they were amphetamines. Lots of little pills that made the mouth dry and increased the speed of talking I sounded like Speedy Gonzales.
After too many pills and too many injections it was clear my body was not tolerating the expensive treatment. I found a South African accountant who had studied to be an acupuncturist.
He lived in Highgate.
I lay down on his couch and he felt for my pulses. A little voice in my head thought I ought to tell him I had been to Harley street that morning. He leant in to my face and told me, in a very concerned South African accent, that if I continued with the drugs I would be dead in a week.
He put a Chopin Ballade on his stereo and plunged various needles into my head and body.
When I left I got on a 24 bus and travelled into Leicester Square. Outside the Garrick Theatre I threw the phials of pills into a yellow skip. For one week I cold turkied.
I went back to Highate and asked if I could have the same treatment.
‘You have to be a very good girl to get that one.’ he said
He treated me until I know longer needed the drugs and introduced me
to my new body and brown rice.
Many years ago my German acupuncturist was travelling through Tibet. A feller at the back of the bus was fixated on her big toe – poking out from her hippie sandals – he got up from his seat, and in the middle of the Himalayas told her that she would study acupuncture and needed to go to East Grinstead to learn.
Thank fuck she did otherwise I wouldn’t have had her sitting on my sofa last Saturday with a bunch of needles and a heart of gold.
I have been pricked for years and years and years, and now I know how to prick myself.
It won’t get the kidneys back to health but it sure as hell soothes the spirit.
Thank God for the Tibetan bus service, and my German pal who bothered to come all the way from Hamburg too stick needles in me and remind me that I am not dead yet.