Fear

[smokingboot]

So I have made another appointment for a blood test.

This has been hanging around for months. It'a about finding out if I am entering the menopause. Got no problems with that - never wanted kids, don't want them now - but I am very needle phobic. I have been getting better over the past couple of years, but I am still afraid. I have made an appointment to minimise waiting around, but I can already feel a fear starting. One has to fast for 10 hours beforehand, so it's not something you can just walk in and do; you have to be mindful.

Oh dear, I hate injections so much.

I have never had a blood test in my whole life, or at least, in my whole remembered life. My medical notes don't have records of a blood test, though I have been a vaccination/inoculation pincushion since I was very young. It's shocking that I have never given blood, but I just can't explain it. Injections hurt me, they really do, and I start to panic before I have one.

I am panicking now. Not a panic attack, or I couldn't write this. I am not one for such things. But I can feel a kind of weird bubbling in my stomach, a quiet nausea, and my eyes are beginning to fill with tears.

48 and never had a blood test, the doctor joked I must be very healthy. Truth is, I don't fall ill that much, and when I do, all I have to do is listen to my bod. If it says sleep I sleep, if it says eat I eat, if it says don't eat I don't eat. Sometimes stuff happens, but my body gets over it. I know I am lucky in that regard.

I would ignore this but I can't. My great-grandmother suffered from osteoporosis, and because I am small and thin (er...ish) the doc reckons it could be a possibility for me. And anyway, it's good to know what is going on.

Oh but I don't want to do this. The centre is always so crowded, from embarrassed STD patients to weary mothers with four or five children hanging off them like carrier bags full of scream. Nowhere for them to go, nowhere for me to hide.

I hate this whole thing so much. Tears and nausea have gone for now. Reckon some comforting soup and cheese will help sort this out.

Comments

[abutterflygirl.livejournal.com]

Two things...firstly, 48?? Are you serious?? I never knew your age, but I presumed mid thirties at a push! Wow!
Secondly, I totally understand and feel your pain with the injections/blood test. I almost always faint and it hurts! The fear, I can almost feel it now and I'm not even going. Thinking of you!! xx

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Thank you, how nice! My genes are dodgy in certain ways, but they've been a winner on this level, especially coupled with emotional immaturity!

Re the thing itself, I have a night show which ends at 3, I must fast after 3.30 am, so my munchies tonight have to see me through until the test tomorrow afternoon. Wish me luck!

[abutterflygirl.livejournal.com]

Eat eat eat!! Like you've never eaten before :-) and because it's late tonight sleep lots too then you won't be worrying or hungry for as long! And of course, no need to ask, I'm wishing you the best of luck with it. Don't you just despise those that walk in and out no problems and tell you it doesn't hurt one bit. grrrrrr! I'll be thinking of you, knowing how it really is!xx

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Bless you butterfly girl! xxx