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Patient Interview
Dayle
Dayle Atkin was severely burned in the Bali bombing of 2002 and spent 6 weeks in hospital undergoing multiple surgeries painful daily bandage changes. Dayle also developed acute stress disorder as a result of his experience. Virtual Medicine was called to help treat Dayle using Virtual Reality Hypnosis™™ (VRH) when pharmacological pain therapy was unable to control his pain.
Dayle recalls the bomb blast
"I think I was knocked out unconscious. Something
hit me in the nose and when I woke up I just knew I had been in a bomb
blast. I was never on fire… it was when I was climbing the wall that
I could feel my skin melting and when I got over the wall I could already
feel the blisters on my arms and back."
About the nightmares and associated traumatic
stress disorder
"There was the night I jumped out of bed.
I thought I was back in the Sari Club and I panicked and I knew I couldn't
walk - I just jumped out of bed. I must have thought I was climbing and
fell to the floor and crawled behind the door and wouldn't let the nurses
or doctors in. I guess I was just petrified."
"I was trying to get some sleep, but getting the bed changed all the time and the interruptions… I was lucky to get an hour and a half sleep if that."
Morphine provided no pain relief
"I don't know if it was just my system but…
the pain… they (pain killers) weren't working. I had the morphine
drip in and I was pumping it in and having all these dreams…"
Virtual Medicine were asked to introduce Virtual
Reality Hypnosis™ to Dayle's therapy
"… I remember them telling me they were
going to use hypnosis on me… I was never a believer… I'd seen
it on TV and thought 'what a load of rubbish', but I had to try something
so…"
After Dayle's first session with Virtual Reality
Hypnosis™ (VRH).
I remember waking up and I didn't know how long
I slept, but I thought 'gee that actually did work!' I could tell in myself
that it helped, because my mood had changed and I wanted to know what
was going on, on the outside and how many Australians died…"
"It's so hard to describe… how it transformed me from being out of this world in a state where nothing was real, I couldn't see a future... Where afterwards (after VRH) I was thinking 'I might be able to get better' - I think this is going to work, I can see the difference… I was healing, I was talking to people. It definitely changed my thinking patterns overnight… I don't know how long I slept for, but I know it was a good sleep"
11 days later Dayle relapses into an anxiety
attack.
"… I think it was while I was having
a bath… I heard her mention to another nurse 'oh they're not looking
good - I think we're going to have to operate' and it just set me off
into troppo land. I was upset and carrying on saying 'why are you doing
this to me?' …and it all started again. And I think I had a panic
attack that night."
"… I asked for it back… I remember saying 'can you please get me that gentleman with those (VRH) glasses' , because I'd seen how it worked. It's pretty hard to tell people that it works until they experience it.
Dayle's mother speaks about the ordeal.
"...he just seem to come back to life…
I mean, before he had the hypnosis (VRH) he had the doors shut, we couldn't
open the curtains, everything had to be dark, he wouldn't talk with people,
he wasn't eating - we were forcing food and drink down him."
"But, I think within 12 hours of the first hypnosis (VRH), we had the door open, the curtains were open and he was starting to eat. I think that was one of the biggest differences and also he was starting to sit up more in the bed because up until then he was in the fetal position…"
"Gradually, after 24 hours and even 48 hours - incredibly big difference in him… Once the pain was easing off he started to make contact with people again… You could see it in the expression on his face. He wasn't as haggard looking as he had been.
Dayle has not suffered any post traumatic
stress symptoms since leaving the hospital and is now leading a normal
life.
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