Stories
My journey of self-infusing
Tue 27 Sep 2016
Hamish tells the story of his self-infusing journey and how far he has come “I used to be super needle phobic. It used to take a dozen (12) nurses to hold me down to give me a finger prick”.
Hamish explains that his parents began teaching him how to self-infuse by slowly getting him to do small parts of the infusion himself. He admits that while he has been self-infusing for a long time, he is not perfect and sometimes doesn’t always do it perfectly the first time.
He expresses the importance of not letting it discourage you “OK, I’m 23 years old, I’ve been self-infusing for a decade and I’m not perfect. If you mess up it’s not the end of the world.”
Geoffrey, a youth leader from ACT, commented on how excited the kids at camp were to be part of a self-infusion demonstration with Hamish at an HFACT camp: “they all jostled for a front row seat to watch Hamish stick needles in his arm”.
Hamish reminds other youth and parents alike not to be discouraged when facing challenges and obstacles with self-infusing “give it 5 minutes and try a different spot or try a different arm – whatever it takes”.
Hamish also reminds youth about the importance of treatment: “Doing your factor is your way of staying healthy and staying out of hospital and then you can go out and do fun things”.
He reflects on his involvement with youth over the past years as having a leadership style that is encouraging and reassuring: “Just have another go”. “Give stuff a go, that’s my motto with anything haemophilia related”.
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