Cuts, scrapes, stubbed toes - these I can handle. I handle them well, in fact. I am the Empress of Band-aids. In my house, Band-Aids are the placebo for everything that goes wrong. I mop up the blood, apply a little sticky-backed patch of Doctor Mommy Goodness and off they scamper, back outside to bust something else. This blood is no problem.
All mommies are Superwoman. And with few exceptions, all mommies have their kryptonite.
Mine?
Needles.
I am squirming in my seat just typing the damn word. Needles give me heebie-jeebies of EPIC proportions. But only medical needles. Not tattoo needles. Not sewing needles. Just the kind of needles that the doctor or dentist uses to put UNDER YOUR SKIN or IN YOUR VEINS. Omigod, I almost just passed out.
It started at a very tender age. My childhood pediatrician hated me. Poor Dr. Tucker, if I so much as thoughtI was going to get a shot or have my finger poked for blood, it took five people to hold me down. By the time I was in my twenties, I had to caution every doctor I had to put me horizontal for bloodwork. More than one doctor or phlebotomist insisted "Oh, no, its just a little draw, you'll be fine." They found out the hard way that I was going horizontal, one way or the other. Involuntarily works just as well, folks, except you risk injuring your patient. I've fallen off more than one exam table. Once I tried to donate blood, because my fireman father - who, incidentally has some kind of kooky award from the blood bank for donating something like 1,000 gallons in his lifetime - insisted that I was not a true American or a patriot or even a human being if I didn't donate blood. So I donated once when the building I worked in was doing a blood drive. I made it all the way through the procedure, then passed out in the elevator on the way back to my office, scaring the shit out of some poor man who was riding with me. He thought I'd died. (Dude, my fingers are going numb right now. I can't even THINK about that day without my eyesight fading to black)
I thought pregnancy would cure me of my aversion. Remarkably, for both of my pregnancies, I did OK with the blood draws and the IV's. Anything for the baby, I supposed. But the postpartum surgery I had after A was born quickly proved that my pregnancy-induced-tolerance was only a temporary phenomenon. Remember how I posted a little bit ago about how its not really funny if the doctor gives you too many stitches in your perineal tear? Yeah. So I had to have surgery to correct that. So I could, you know, GET LAID AGAIN SOMETIME IN MY LIFE. And I went in, got all dressed for the prom in my open-backed butt-hanging-out hospital gown, reclined on the preop bed, and promptly passed out when they put in my IV. Oh how I miss the days when anesthesia just meant they put a big mask on your face, you breathed in a few times, and you went down for a nice long nap. No. Now they want to stick needles in you. JUST MY LUCK.
So the whole point of this post, the reason I'm telling you all about how big, tough, me is a total weenie when it comes to needles and blood, is that C had to have a blood test. My secret, shameful parenting fail is that neither of my children has had basic bloodwork done. EVER. I can't do it. I can't take them. But C needed to have some blood tests done - long story short, it is likely that C has a double-gene mutation that, if he has it, would cause his body not only to not uptake Folic Acid but also not to process it into the end product that the body needs. This condition also has some indications for people with anxiety disorders. For those who take meds for their anxiety disorder, it can cause the meds to make them very nauseated, and mostly rendered them ineffective. My poor little C has pretty bad anxiety disorder - likely genetic. He's been having a very hard time lately. Our pediatrician doesn't think he's going to survive kindergarten very well in his current state, and I concur. So we want to try some low-level medication to see if he has good results. Except if he has the gene mutation, medication won't really help. So he needed a blood test to help find out if that's the case.
I just couldn't. Could. Not.
All the credit for getting that done goes to his dad. And when he called me to let me know it had been done, I almost passed out in my chair as he described the event. (I think he did it on purpose. There has to be some way to get me back for the Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts that was our marriage).
I won't be able to look at the band-aid on his arm without my knees going week and my stomach doing a little flip. That's how bad I am.
My name is Mary and I'm a Weenie.
