Why are Heather's blog posts like buses?

Because you wait ages for one and then three turn up at once!

So, it finally happened. Just when I was beginning to feel that I had pretty much conquered my fear of dogs. I was walking back from Alice's house yesterday evening - a walk of about two minutes that I have done countless times. There are usually a number of dogs along the route. Sometimes they bark, but usually they don't take much notice.

 I spotted one of them lying at the side of the road in the gathering gloom. As I approached, it got up and started to wander across the road in front of me. I moved slightly to one side so that I was not heading straight into its path, and continued walking at the same, steady pace looking straight ahead, as I have trained myself to do.

We passed each other without incident, and I was just congratulating myself on yet another doggy encounter successfully negotiated when I felt a sudden, sharp pain in the back of my leg, just above the knee, and thought "Oh no! I've just been bitten!" I am quite amazed by the calmness of my reaction. I half turned around for a moment, but basically just carried on walking in exactly the same way, while desperately hoping that it would not attack again. It didn't - I think it had run off, cowardly little beast!

I phoned Alice and she came around straight away in the car to take me to the hospital. It doesn't matter what you go there for, they always start by weighing you and taking your blood pressure. I was interested to see that the experience had raised my blood pressure slightly above my usual super-low figure, though my weight remained unchanged!

In my rush to get to the hospital I had forgotten to take my immunisation record with me. I was able to remember exactly when I had my rabies jabs (my arm was incredibly sore at my final VSO training in January after the third injection). However, the doctor also wanted to know when my last tetanus was. I knew it was not more than ten years, as all my jabs were up to date before I came out, but she wanted more specific information. So we decided to do everything else and then go back home to get the information.

I was taken into the treatment room to have the first rabies jab and to have the wound cleaned and dressed. That was fun! I had to take off my trousers, which I was about to do, when the nurse insisted I use a pink sheet sewn into a large tube shape to protect my modesty. I couldn't work out quite what I was meant to do with it, so in the end the nurse held it up while I removed my trousers inside my own mini-changing room! She washed the wound (two puncture holes - nothing major) very thoroughly and dressed it, and instructed me not to get it wet.

We then picked up my medication (antibiotics and painkillers) from the hospital pharmacy, before heading home to get the tetanus information. By the time we got back, probably not much more than 20 minutes later, the doctor I had seen had gone home, and the next one was not due to arrive for another 45 minutes.  The nurse who had done my injection had also "gone out" for 15 minutes, and between them the pharmacist and another nurse did not seem confident to say whether I should have a tetanus booster or not. (Bear in mind that this is a private hospital!)

Eventually the nurse came back, and reassured me that I did not, after all, need a tetanus jab, so I was free to go home and cook myself a rather belated dinner! On Saturday after the workshop I will need to go back to the hospital to get the second rabies jab.

This morning I had the challenge of having a shower and washing my hair without the water running down the back of my leg and wetting the dressings. I fashioned myself a couple of waterproof plasters from plastic bag and sticky tape, and had the shower with one foot raised up on the large water container that I invested in after the floods. Seemed to work ok, but washing the one foot on the floor was a bit tricky!

Today the leg is a bit sore, but I'm basically ok. The thing I am most upset about is that it has sent me right back to square one, or even further, as far as my fear of dogs is concerned. I think that is the end of me just popping round on foot to Alice's house. I'll be getting on my motorbike for a 2-minute journey, which seems crazy, but I do not imagine myself being able to walk past that dog again without showing fear, and if you do that then you're done for! Perhaps I should follow Alice's example and always walk with a stick or an umbrella to ward them off!