a traumatic experience.

I got shots and blood drawn yesterday. Anybody who knows me knows how much I hate needles. Mom said I should write about it, so I did.

Needles



Foreboding, but without the normal anxiety. It’s a dull, apathetic feeling, like a prisoner being sent to the electric chair who doesn’t care to live. Past times, I have had major anxiety. Almost attacks, before. Mother tells me not to worry about it until it happens. I push it from my mind, but it tries to crawl back into my consciousness, but without fervor. I fight back feebly. I am lying on the bed. I fall asleep. I drift in and out of consciousness. I am a rag doll, tossed carelessly on the floor. I feel nothing. My mother wakes me by turning on the television. She was watching her soap opera. The actors are terrible. Finally, we leave. I read a book in the car, and try to lose myself in it. When we get there, Mom realizes she has forgotten the forms and sends me in without her. I wait alone in the lobby, then am called back. We have to get started, the nurse says. I fill out the evaluation, then the doctor comes in the room. She says the dreaded word. “Vaccines.” No. Oh, no. My breathing quickens. She says we’ll wait for my mom before the needles. That was good. Mom comes. We go through the exam. It feels like a dream. Surreal and difficult to concentrate on. Then the woman came in to draw blood. The same nurse from before is with her, and holds my hand. I lie on my back and look up at the mobile above me. The person pictured on it is bald and has very thick eyebrows. When the strip of elastic is tied around my arm, I begin to panic. “Mom!” I cry. The needle plunges into my arm. “You’re doing good,” croons the nurse. I don’t feel like I am “doing good”. I don’t even mentally think to correct her. I feel the blood draining from my arm. As she slides the needle out, I can feel it leaving my body. A strange experience. Then there is a cotton ball and tape, and it is done. But it isn’t done. I have two shots I have to get next. The moment they leave, the tears well up and come cascading down my cheeks. My mother comes over to me and encircles me in her arms. “Cry,” she demands. I weep, and sob, and wail a bit. Then come the shots. The nurse is very kind about it, and has me breath in and out while she does it to keep my mind off the needles being jabbed into my flesh.
I am very proud of myself. I did not pull away once. And granted, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But my arm still hurts.