Saturday 18 April 2015

On needles

I had a panic attack today. 

I had a dentist's appointment to remove my wisdom teeth. It was all fine in my head, you know, the blood and gore aspect of it. I was not much bothered that my crazy phobia of needles would make its presence felt. But it did. 

I have always been scared of needles. I rarely go for a blood test without my mother, for support. Until not very long ago, there have been episodes of me running through the house with my dad chasing me with a tetanus shot. There was also the time I went all hysterical in a path lab and two nurses had to come and restrain me. These are all incidents in my 20s. 


But lately, after a bout of dengue which involved at least 12 blood tests in 5 days, I thought my fear was abating. Although, whenever they took my blood during the dengue phase, I was in bed and would hide under the covers and leave my arm out for them to take the blood. That was not difficult. 


Then, there was that time when I had to do a full medical for a job. Since my employer had these labs on the company panel where we were supposed to get the tests done, I had to go on my own, behave myself, and not do much but squirm as they took 4 vials of blood out of me. It was a proud day. 

Today was stupid. I went inside the clinic, and without ceremony was plonked on the chair. 

It is scary being in surgeries or interventions of any kind. You are the centre of everyone's attention. It is not easy being in the spotlight. All the idiotic inferiority complexes of you not being worth any attention creep in. Just leave me alone, you think. I am Ok in the sidelines. Don't look at me. There are other people to focus on. But no, it has to be you. You are asking for this. You are paying for it. 

I opened my mouth and stared into the light above my head. It said 'Gnatus'. That's Latin for jaw, I thought. Trying to distract by remembering old biology textbooks describing evolution. Agnatha, the jawless fish. 


The dentist checked my teeth with that mirror-thing they have. He said nothing. No remarks about the time it would take, no smiles, no harmless banter. The next thing I know, a big needle crosses my vision and he starts to put it into my mouth without any "This is going to hurt just a bit" stock statement. I shut my mouth and said no. Me, the spineless coward, I thought. 


I asked him to wait. I told him I was scared of needles and would need a moment to catch my breath. At the second attempt, after 10 seconds, I again froze. I was expecting some reassurance here. "You can do it Swapna. It'll be like an ant bite" or even, "It's just a matter of 10 minutes, you'll be fine". Nothing. Even after I said it was just the needle I was scared of, not the pain. He said point blank that he needed full cooperation of the patient and did not expect that in the present case, and the surgery could not be done. That made me feel smaller than I already was feeling. It is not easy having a phobia. You curse yourself for having it. And sometimes all you need is a little encouragement. None was coming. And then it started, the panic attack. All the sweating, the dizziness, the embarrassment of it all. 


Almost running, from the clinic I came straight home, with my impacted wisdom teeth intact, hugged my mom, and slept. 

I am all for being macho and tough and braving through pain. But empathy, and even sympathy, are underrated virtues. It does not harm to smile a bit to encourage someone, or say you are brave to someone who is shit scared. How else would anyone have done anything at all?