Bravery is Relative

I am a big, big weenie.

Despite growing up with nurses as parents, I’m a big fraidy cat when it comes to doctors and visiting them. I go when I really have to, but I try to keep my visits down to the absolutely necessary. Likewise for dentists. Worseso for dentists, actually. I’m embarassed to admit how may years I went without a dentist visit before starting up again earlier this year: it’s a number between 4 and 7 and it’s not 5.

Due to these pre-existing conditions (ha!) the last two weeks have been an excercise in unadulterated BRAVERY. First I thought I was dying because my lower back hurt like the dickens. So I went in to the doctor and she made me do tests. Most of the tests were easy, but a few involved needles. My extra bravery points come from my decision, with NO PROMPTING WHATSOEVER, to get a flu shot on my way out of the clinic. Yes, it involved a needle and yes, I could possibly die from an air bubble or something, but I went ahead and did it. It didn’t hurt that bad. I still wore the band-aid on my arm for the entire day, just so people would know.

This week the bravery became a lot more pronounced, because the pain hadn’t gone away — it felt much worse. This time I had to get a bigger test and honestly? It was really scary. They put an IV in me and shot me full of dye which made me feel all hot under my skin and in my veins. The guy told me it would feel like I wet my pants, and it did. Then I had to lie still and hold my breath, over and over, for a long time. I caught a glance of my arm with the tube in it and all I could think about was the fact that I was attached to something, and that a strange substance was making its way through my bloodstream and it freaked my shit out. My grandma used to get dialysis and that’s your whole entire blood supply circuiting out of you. Typing that just gave me shivers. I cannot deal with being old and having an IV pumping stuff into me on a regular basis. I think when that happens I will ask my loved ones to put me out on an iceberg with some books.

After the scary test was the even scarier waiting. What if I had cancer in my ladyparts? What if my kidneys were pickled? This waiting took place during a bigger day of waiting: Election Day. I was in a complete and total frazzle until I got results at the end of the day. No cancer, no pickling, just a benign yet freakishly large (and therefore painful) cyst. After that the Obama announcement was kind of just gravy, you know?

To top off my week of accomplishments, I went to the dentist today and I didn’t worry on the way there because hell I’d had DYE IN MY BLOOD, what is the dentist going to do to me? My gums are still very sensitive and so the cleaning was pretty unpleasant. But I was able to categorize it thusly: unpleasant, not awful not painful not scary.

It’s good to know that I can do these things. It’s also good to put my fear into perspective and to realize that many people I know have gone through much worse and they don’t bat an eyelash. I’m humbled. Those other people are pretty amazing.