Three times scared
... it turned to be almost impossible, and we could not waste too much time. We needed to be inside the palace before the people started walking down the street on their way back from the church to their houses. The still beautiful and complex design of decorations suggested us that it would have been easier to climb the gate and jump into the garden. Mattia went first, and he made it successfully to the other side of the gate. I went second, and, as our tools were heavy, instead of throwing them on the other side of the twelve-foot high fence, I carried them with me in a backpack. I reached the top of the gate quickly and I maneuvered to move to the other side. I started my descending but my sack was hooked on one of the gilded lilies decorating the top of the gate. When I stretched my arm to reach it, as soon as I was able to move it, I lost my equilibrium and I fell. I scratch myself against the spikes at the bottom of the gate and I started bleeding. My friend Mattia, two years older than I, convinced me that I should have gone home immediately and tell to my parents what happened. In less than fifteen minutes I was in the emergency room of the closest hospital. I was terrified. The doctor came up to me with a nice smile and I hated him. He asked me to take off my pants and to lay down on the bed; I was embarrassed and he knew what he was going to do to me. I could feel the syringe even if I couldn’t see it and he kept talking and talking and he made me talk a lot as well. After a minute, he sent me home! I was almost upset: I was ready to bare the harm of the puncture and I thought it would have been the most painful thing of my life and instead… he cheated! He distracted me, he drove away my concentration and with it my fear, and he was so good that I didn’t even feel the needle. I laughed: how silly I was! Even nowadays, every time the memory of that day comes to my mind, I still laugh of myself. I went through middle school, and every year I happily took all my vaccinations, but one day, at my usual check up at the dentist, he told me he found a small tiny cavity. I would have needed an anaesthesia, and when I said no, he scared me to death showing me the drill he was going to use and describing the incredible pain I would have felt without puncture. I gave up, but I was sweating. “Where will he sting me?” I kept thinking. I was horrified at the thought of my cheek perforated from one side to another by a needle and there was obviously no other place unless he wanted to go somehow through my teeth. Once again, children have funny thoughts! This time the pain was disturbing. Slowly, but steadily, the syringe was going deeper and deeper, and I was feeling everything. Once the needle was inside, the effect of the anaesthesia was even worst. My whole left cheek and half of my tongue were “asleep”, paralyzed. But the most important thing was that, no matter how painful it was, I had faced my fear once again and courageously survived the anaesthetic puncture. The last and most terrible experience, after which my fear for needles disappeared, was my very first blood test and consequent blood donation. At this time I was eighteen and, by my own decision, I made up my mind to start giving blood to a blood bank. Their building was cosy and the people standing in line inside were smiling. They gave me five different containers and they told me I would have had to fill t...