On a Scale of One to Ten AUDIO
Read by Harriet Dobby
People always wonder if I’ve ever used it while having sex. As soon as they find out what I do and they’ve had enough to drink, that’s what they ask. That, or they squeeze my arm and tell me, “You’re so brave.” I’ve heard this enough by now to know it’s not a compliment. It’s just code for, “You must be a fucking masochist.” I don’t know. Maybe they’re right.
I remember the first demonstration. We were in the operating theatre in Gelder Wing at the hospital and they had Dr. Krauther strapped to a gurney and Dr. Ang with his back to him and noise-cancelling headphones on. They began with a needle.
As it touched Dr. Krauther’s pinky, I saw Dr. Ang begin typing. His answer flashed on the screen that hung above them:
ONE – LEFT PINKY
Next was the lit match.
They winced in unison.
FOUR – RIGHT ANKLE
Remember, Dr. Ang said. Focus on the sensation, not your fear of it. Where is it located? What is its intensity? Because it’s not really happening to you, there’s no danger, just sensation. Remember, you can remain detached while the patient cannot.
The two of them worked all the way up to a scalpel to the arm (seven) before they both screamed and the supervising physician had the nursing students all leave the gallery. I asked to begin training the next day.
#
I practiced with my roommate, Michael, another nursing student, after official instruction. We’d take turns.
What does this feel like?
I stuck myself with the tip of a safety pin.
One, he said. Right thigh.
I turned away so I couldn’t see what he’d picked out for himself. He took a long time, hovering over his options. I told him not to be a pussy about it and then felt a rush of pure, clean pain jolt through my stomach. I squeezed my eyes shut. Be detached, be aware. This isn’t really happening to you. Focus on the pain. Where is it located? What is its intensity? The sensation settled into something I could name.
Six, I said, smiling. Left foot.
Then the feeling disappeared. I turned, took off my headphones and saw Michael, the sensors ripped from his skin, vomiting into the sink at edge of the room, missing a sliver of his toe.
I’ve learned, in the months since I’ve been certified, and had to relay my results to waiting doctors, that people always underestimate six. I’ve also learned in those months what it feels like to have a six or close to it in your spleen, your L4 vertebrae and, disconcertingly for me as a woman, in your testicles.
For whatever it’s worth, Michael didn’t pass his certification.
#
The machine has been a big breakthrough, obviously, even if it wasn’t made for totally altruistic reasons. They pitched it as something to save cancer patients or people with internal bleeding. People suggested they could hook up husbands to them while their wives went through labour. That got some angry responses. The empathy machine, though. That’s what a lot of people called it. But really it got funded to determine if opiate addicts were in pain versus withdrawal. Big money in opiates, but a lot of angry people, lot of pharmacists at gunpoint. How do you determine if someone is in enough pain that they need Oxycodone? Why don’t you hook them up to a machine, run by a trained professional? Then they get a little print out they can take into the pharmacy:
SEVEN – RIGHT ABDOMEN
Sales of opioids have gone up, surprisingly or maybe not, since the machine protocol was instituted. I don’t like working with people like that though. I like sitting with the pain for longer, trying to really feel it. I actually have become less aware of the pains in my own body. It’s hard to pay attention to my own sensations after focusing on being in other people’s bodies all day.
But yes, it did ruin my sex life, as long as I’m being honest with you. And not just because everyone normal saw the scars on my arm from all the practice sessions and got freaked out, or because the only people who wanted to sleep with me once they found out what I did were total freaks. It ruined my sex life because I’d just go blank when someone touched me. I kept waiting to feel the way my skin must feel to them, the way they felt kissing me, the way they felt when I touched them. I kept waiting for my empathy machine to kick in.
“Do you like that?” they’d always ask, even if they didn’t care if I did or how I answered.
The only thing I could ever say back was, “Do you?” It was the question I was most used to asking. “Can you feel this? How does this feel to you?”
One patient, Claire, who had osteosarcoma – Seven, right hip – told me that if she felt well and she had a boyfriend, that would be the first thing she’d use the machine for. Hooking up to it and seeing what sex felt like for a man. I explained to her that it wouldn’t work that way, it only registered pain receptors. She’d looked really sad when I told her that. “Ah well,” Claire said. “Anything is worth a try, right?” She passed away a few months later.
#
I’ve only felt one ten. That’s the other thing people always wonder, after the sex thing. She was an old woman, 91, slowly drowning in the fluid in her own lungs – a solid 8, by the way – and I was hooked up to her to determine if her chest pain originated from a problem with her PICC line when she had a massive heart attack with me still attached. I screamed. I’m not too proud to admit that. They disconnected me and tried to revive her but I could feel her in my veins all day, the feeling of my own heart exploding, clotting, collapsing. They said I could go home early but I waited until her kids got there. They were all crying. They gave the oldest, her son, the print out from the machine.
TEN – CHEST, LEFT SIDE
#
Maybe the machine could register pleasure. It wasn’t designed that way, but like Claire said, anything is worth a try. But it seems disrespectful to use it that way. It’s held the pain of tumors and addiction and gunshot wounds and so many other things that matter so much more than any pleasure could. Because pleasures you keep seeking out again and again and again but pain most people don’t. I mean they think they do, but not really. Not true pain. Not sixes and above. I think those mean more than pleasures because they’re singular, at least for most people.
I still keep my skills sharp, pardon the pun. I’m a certifier now and I have each new round of students practice on me first. They always start with the needle. I smile with encouragement as I prick my finger and the blood bubbles up.
ONE, they type. LEFT PINKY.
Good job, I tell them. You’re so brave.
(c) Meg Charlton, 2014
Meg Charlton is a writer and filmmaker based in London. She just completed her Masters in Media, Communications and Development at the LSE and is now very happy to be able to write something other than her dissertation.
Harrie's credits include ENO's multimedia opera Sunken Garden which premiered at The Barbican & then went on a worldwide tour, Hermia in a UK & International tour of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mary Jane Kelly in Jack the Ripper's London and Kelly in Evidence. Harrie is represented by Rosebery Management.
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