QMusings

No, this isn’t the fear of eating too much turkey and falling sleep.

Turkey contains tryptoPHAN, not tryPANo.

Trypanophobia is the extreme and irrational fear of medical procedures involving injections or hypodermic needles.

Those with this fear, roll up your sleeves, extend your arm and make a fist.

Queasy already, aren’t you?

I had this fear. I liked my mom’s name for it: Needle phobia.

What is interesting is that trypanophobia is a fear of needles as they apply to injections.

I don’t have a fear of needles in general. Actually, I probably didn’t have trypanophobia, as I didn’t fear all injections: I’ve had injections for dental work, immunizations and even minor medical procedures without much fear. My fear was really about having blood drawn.

So I didn’t have:

aichmophobia: fear of pointed objects
belonephobia: fear of needles
enetophobia: fear of pins

Good to know that there are many fears I don’t have.

Last Friday I suggested that we begin our day with gratitude. Buried in that post was that fact that I was going to my annual physical that day.

If you’ve ever had a physical, you know they generally involve having your blood cholesterol tested. If you have trypanophobia you may not have had a physical in however long you could put it off. In my 20s I managed to go 5 years without encountering a needle. I would see my doctor. I would just avoid taking the blood test.

I realized that I really should let go of this fear.

Rationally I knew that the pain from the needle wasn’t all that bad and was in fact less painful than someone pinching me. Because having blood tests weren’t a regular thing for me, I was able to avoid dealing with the fear.

However, having the fear bothered me. I was in my early 20s at the time and I thought that the older I get the more blood tests I was likely to have and being so nervous that I felt faint wasn’t going to help. I also thought that if I ever got pregnant, having a child was one long blood test.

I slowly worked on letting go of my fear – this one took years since I didn’t have to face it but once or twice a year! I went from worrying about a test months in advance and then fixating on it more and more as the test drew near to where I am now, just a bit nervous right before the test but not really all that nervous.

This really came in handy last Friday.

I try to take care of my health and prevention is my big thing. Remember: I’m High Maintenance!

My doctor and I discuss what’s going on with me. I mention a few things I’d like checked out and he adds a few more tests to the lab request sheet.

We ended up discussing what has been going on in my life and I always find it a bit surreal to be casually chatting with a doctor. I mean, there I am, generally half naked (”Please remove your clothing from the waist up”) or even mostly naked.

Do socks count towards nudity? Technically I would think so but personally, if I were only wearing socks, I’d feel naked. If I’m at the doctors and told to totally undress, I keep on my socks. I don’t want my bare feet touching the floor.

Also, what about the giant paper towel they give you to wear at the doctor’s office? Does that count as clothing? It’s more like a … joke.

Anyway, there I am half or fully naked casually chatting with someone who I barely know. Someone who’s pressing and prodding and possibly inserting things into me.

Surreal.

I can’t be the only one who feels this way.

I finally dress and go downstairs to the lab to wait some more. It’s after 11am and I am a bit hungry. I hadn’t eaten since 9pm the prior evening.

I end up getting the same phlebotomist as I did last year. What’s a phlebotomist? It’s someone who’s trained to draw blood (venipuncture). I am SO HAPPY there are people who specialize in this. They are very experienced in getting it right the first time. None of this, poke, oops, poke, sorry, poke…

They have a great team at this lab. I’ve been going there for several years now. I remember my particular phlebotomist because she is this no-nonsense, slightly stocky middle-aged Chinese woman with short black hair, narrow glasses and a Chinese accent. Each lid is precisely swiped with bright green eyeshadow.

She tells me to take off my jacket and hang it up on the hook in her little screened off area. As I’m doing this, she has my lab request sheet in her left hand and she’s looking up at this Lucite shelf containing vials.

She begins taking vials out of the shelf with her right hand, muttering, “Uh, uh, uh, uh-huh, uh…” The vials are items on her shopping list.

I am trying to ignore this.

If this were perhaps 5-7 years ago, I would have felt a bit light-headed. I have low-normal blood pressure so I am guessing that my blood pressure would have dropped. It certainly would have dropped during what happened soon after.

I sat down and told her that my left arm had the “good vein.”

She prods fold of my arm with a latexed finger, “Ummm, hmmm…” she mutters approvingly.

I look down and see an array of vials. Bad idea.

I stop counting at 5.

“That’s a lot of vials!” I say.

“You have a lotta tests!” she replies.

She ties off my upper arm with a rubber strap and tells me to make a fist. At this point I begin breathing in long slow breaths and look away.

I feel the cool swipe of an alcohol swab.

More muttering.

More pressing on my arm with a gloved finger. A deep breath on my part.

I begin counting down from 21.

“Huh.” she says.

I look at her but I don’t look down at my arm. Nope.

“I use smaller needle. Less painful. So many tubes.”

Nice to know. I turn my head away again and begin breathing in slowly and exhaling just as slowly.

I hear something being unwrapped, a mutter, a press and…she’s in.

There is really very little pain and amazingly, she admires my bracelet and we’re casually chatting. I’m still facing away from her but I am not all that stressed. She has a very steady hand and manages to exchange the tubes with little discomfort on my part.

I haven’t had this much blood drawn before so I actually accepted the offer of juice.

I did feel a bit lightheaded but only momentarily.

I am so glad I was able to let go of my needle phobia. I was able to enjoy the spirit of the phlebotomist and appreciate her skill.

Instead of 6 weeks (the time I had to wait for my physical) of ever-increasing anxiety I had perhaps 3 minutes of stress and 30 seconds of discomfort.

I am glad I was able to let go of my needle phobia. I’m not saying that having a blood test is fun but having the test did not take the joy out of my day.

It’s certainly worthwhile to let go of fears.

As I’ve read and heard from many sources, “Fear is really a signal to grow.”

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