A Sarcastic Article

An Irrational Fear – The Dreaded Needle!

 

The irrational fear of needles; also known as aichmophobia (fear of sharp, pointed objects), belonephobia (abnormal fear of sharp objects, especially needles), enetophobia (fear of pins), trypanophobia (fear of injections) and vaccinophobia (fear of vaccinations). Wow, we like to label things! It doesn’t really make me feel much better labelling, actually kinda makes me feel as if it’s worth worrying about, if so many other people feel this, enough to name it five different things.

The cervical cancer injections were the worst, another downfall of being a female (yes, I could list a fair few): I and 95% of my year group (girls’ school – another odd thing I agreed to) volunteered ourselves to be stabbed with an inactive version of a killing disease not once, but three times!

For the first stabbing session I was not too concerned, unlike some of my friends, I’d just heard it was like a small pinch, what was there to worry about? So I wandered into our maths classroom that had been converted into a dungeon of needles, I was surrounded by these thin, sharp, shining needles. Still not overly phased, I take a seat opposite my mate. This nurse begins to ask me the strange questions; ‘are you pregnant?’, this could be quite offensive, especially as it’s the second time I’ve been asked, of course I’m not and I were do you really think I’d say it at this point! I just laugh ‘no’ and she gives me a sceptic look; excuse me! I then look ahead to avoid her inquisitive eye, just at the wrong time, I see the needle pushed into my friend’s pale skin, making the indent as it pushes further and further before withdrawing to allow a stream of red to seep out her arm. This makes my heart pound a little, the nurse notices (she had been staring at me the whole time, so hardly a surprise) she decides to skip the other questions and gets the needle ready. She positions it and I shift, ‘oh, would you like your friend to hold your hand?’, my previously stabbed friend squeezes my hand as the nurse inserts the cold blade into my skin, I can feel my body trying to reject it, I tense and pain rushes up my arm, which only increases my muscle tension resulting in more pain. She slowly withdraws the needle, allowing the scarlet stream to flow down my arm (even she looks shocked at the amount of blood coming out my arm) and hastily sticks on a tiny plaster far away from the pin point and wipes at the blood. I felt sick and was shaking so just left, not giving her a chance for any more questions.

That was just number one. I was sick after and couldn’t stop shaking for hours, people began to worry and the teachers advised me to go home but I couldn’t imagine phoning my Mum to collect me because of an injection, it felt pathetic. So I stuck it out.

The second time round I was freaked before entering the room and insisted my friend come with me again. I sat on the chair, trembling a little, again being asked if I were pregnant – what, since last time? Really? Come on, I’m nervous and you have to drag it out by asking the pointless questions but apparently missing out the potentially useful ones! This nurse proceeds to puncture my arm with no mercy; a horizontal plunge. I feel sick, again!

Third time I’m nervous (shocking right?) but they will not allow me my friend so my nervous are even worse (I’m a peoples person). I am taken in early, the school are learning, they warn the nurse and she is sweet, she tried to calm me and asks if I’m ok because I’m pale (it is winter and I am scared, hardly surprising) then she asks me ‘do you have an allergies’ well, yes I do, a few actually. She looks slightly concerned, ‘oh, umm are you sure you want this?’ now I’m the one looking quizzical ‘yes’ I say reluctantly, ‘you may be ill after, your body is sensitive and your likely to be sick and experience shaking’. Now I understand! I went ahead with it and was sick once again but I thought I might as well, I’d survived two out of three.

So I’m allergic to vaccines, or so I’m told, which makes me think; if my body reacts like that to an inactive version of the pathogen, if I get cancer I’m just gonna die! Poof, gone! What hope do I have? If so, it was all pointless! Pointless!