I’ve changed to a new diabetes medication. One that I need to inject. Which would be fine, really, because I have a ton of tattoos, and I’m not longer actively afraid of needles. I didn’t even feel my flu jab on Thursday (bloody felt it Friday though!). So I should be fine.
Except I was definitely not fine.
I used to have a terrible phobia of needles. My mum didn’t really understand it, her chronic conditions meant at one point, when she was a child, she was having weekly blood tests. She didn’t really have much time for my fear of needles but I would pass out during blood tests due to the anxiety. It started when I was ten, and I had a blood test at the GP. I can’t even remember what the blood test was for, all I know is that the nurse couldn’t get blood out of either arm and it was painful. At one point she even much my elbows in water to warm me up but it didn’t help much. As it turns out, my veins are really hard to find – my mum has the same issues.
After that I was terrified of needles. I hadn’t had any of my vaccinations at that point, and didn’t remember having blood tests or injections when I was in hospital when I was 5 or 6 years old. When I finally had my first vaccination – my BCG at 14, I had to have it done at the GP because I was too scared to have it done in school. I had my meningitis jab in school a few years later, but I had to be ‘escorted’ by my best friends to get it.
I only go over my fear because in my early 20s I ended up in hospital with haemolytic anaemia. I was very ill and my liver was failing and my pancreas enlarged. I needed two pints of blood on admission and another two before they would let me go home. A nurse would come and take about six vials of blood from me every morning. By time I got those two pints of blood before going home I was no longer afraid of needles. I also have a liver biopsy and bone marrow biospy while I was there and those are in my top five more painful experiences. Plus the needles used for those are huge.
I have had my vaccinations since then, all of them, plus my flu jab, my covid jabs. Multiple blood tests and surgery. I had my gall bladder removed just before the lockdown started and at one point had a canula in my hand and in my arm – but not in the crook of my elbow, but half way down my forearm. That was uncomfortable as hell.
I am happy to let nurses learn to take blood on me because I know I am hard to get blood from. you usually have to use the same needles they use on my four year old. The butterfly needle. I’m tricky even for experience phlebotomists.
This all being said, I am fine with needles.
Or, I am fine with someone else injecting me as it turns out.
I am didn’t like the needle sticks for testing my blood sugars, and avoided doing it as much as I could because I always flinched when I did it. I didn’t mind someone else doing it, or doing it to someone else (it was a service we offered at the pharmacy)
Injecting the medication this weekend was the same. I had to have my wife do it for me. I’d been to see the diabetic nurse who walked me through it with a dummy version. And I fully intended to do it when I got home except I knew I couldn’t do it myself the first time. I didn’t know what it was going to feel like, so I didn’t know if I could do it myself.
So I had my wife do it.
Bless her heart, she was worried about because I seemed so nervous, and I was nervous! Even though it was only a 4mm gauge needle, it’s still pointy! Still sharp.
It was fine. I didn’t even feel it, and I pushed in the medication myself. That didn’t hurt but it was a little harder than I expected. Today it’s fine, not even a mark or a bruise. Unlike my flu jab which still hurt last night when I lay on it.
Next week, when I have my next dose, I’ll remember that it was fine and it didn’t hurt.
Hopefully.
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