My Phobia of Pokey Things

by Elisabeth Kay

TW: needles and blood

Whenever I’m asked, “what’s your biggest phobia?” there’s one thing that instantly pops into my brain—needles. It was on file in my pediatrician’s office to have a certain nurse administer any shot I had to be given, and to take my blood pressure after all my shots as it would be abnormally high beforehand. They knew I’d try to sprint out of the room at any moment if there was a thin, sharp, shiny object being carried in on a plastic tray. And, though I’m now a nineteen-year-old girl, nothing makes me as anxious as a small needle.

So, when I find myself once again sitting in my pediatrician’s waiting room as a nineteen-and-a-half-year-old girl, my knee bounces up and down, though I’m just here for a physical. The little boy next to me, who can’t be more than eight years old, is talking his mom’s ear off about how Kanye made Taylor Swift famous, which I am live texting my friends about. Despite checking in five minutes after me, the little boy is taken back by a nurse in animal print scrubs, and his mom and little brother follow suit. 

Ten minutes later, a different nurse comes out and calls my name. She’s wearing blue scrubs, and as I sit on an examination table a bit too small for an adult, she berates me with mildly uncomfortable questions. As I answer them, partially honestly, my hands are subconsciously tearing at the paper covering the examination table. Finally, she assures me the doctor will be in shortly, and she shuffles out of the room. I try to scroll through my phone, but there’s no service in the beige examination room, so I’m forced to look at the posters on the wall. As I’m reading about the pros of receiving the Hepatitis vaccine, a light knock on the door snaps me out of it.

The doctor walks through the door and more of the usual ensues; she repeats some of the same mildly uncomfortable questions, listens to my heart, and makes me touch my toes. Then, a word no one with a phobia of needles wants to hear leaves her mouth– bloodwork. At nineteen-years-old, I had never gotten bloodwork done before; every time a doctor told me I should probably go to the clinic to get it done, I’d simply push it off to a point where the idea was out of my mom and I’s head until the next time I’d visit my pediatrician’s office, and she gave us another card for the clinic. My best friend Ella had told me a horror story of her lips going blue and passing out because the nurse couldn’t find her vein, my other friend Emma had passed out while she donated blood at her school, and my cousin had a file, similar to mine, so nurses knew she was a fainter if she had her bloodwork done. While I understood the importance of it, it was something I didn’t want to have to experience myself. So, I sat and waited for her to pull a card out of her pocket for the Dearborn bloodwork clinic, a few minutes away from my house, that I would most likely never step foot in.

Instead, she left the room, and returned with one of the plastic trays I had spent all my years hating. On it, laid a blue stretchy band, two glass vials, a sterilization wipe, and a long tube connected to a small, skinny needle. I couldn’t take my eyes off it and my heartbeat was increasing a considerable amount. She called in two more girls: one of them, the nurse who was with me earlier, and another wearing darker blue scrubs. They were both students from nearby colleges, and she was going to use me as an example of how to complete bloodwork on a patient—a girl already losing the pigment in her skin at just the mere sight of the needle on a tray.

TW: BLOOD DRAWING

As she tied the stretchy band tightly above my elbow on my right arm, I began to do breathing exercises under my mask. The nurses leaned in, watching attentively as she wiped my arm down and began prepping the needle, explaining the step-by-step process which, at this point, didn’t sound like English to me. I watched—I’ve always had to watch, to know exactly when I’m going to feel the needle in me– as she slid the needle under my skin and began to wiggle it around. I instantly thought of Ella; why couldn’t she find the vein right away? Was I turning purple? As if she could read my mind, she explained that finding the vein can sometimes be hard, and you must have the patient keep pumping their fist until you find the right one, as my shaky hand was managing to do. Finally, she settled down with the needle, and my eyes did not leave the punctured area of my arm—which, thinking back, I probably should’ve looked away during this part—as two vials of blood easily flowed out of my body.

“Stop pumping,” she ordered, sternly, after what felt like forever, and I happily obliged. Though my head felt a little dizzy, I was proud of myself; I had just given blood, and I wasn’t (externally) a baby about it! 

“Okay, now go do a urine sample,” she said, walking back into the room in the span of thirty seconds with a plastic cup in hand. As I nodded and hopped down from the examination table, I made eye contact with the nurse from earlier, who’s eyes were wide—either because I was four shades paler than when I’d entered the office or because she had naturally big eyes. My feet miraculously led me down the hallway full of bright grays and cool blues, my large water bottle in hand and the sterile lights beaming down on me as the room began to spin. I quickly shut the bathroom door, drank some water in attempts to stop the room from wiggling, and opened my texts to my mom, my shaky hands typing the words, “i just gave blood and it went so well!” to prove to her that her daughter who was going into her sophomore year of college was finally growing up.

Then I felt the right side of my face getting sore, pressed up against something cold. I couldn’t open my eyes, though—I was only half conscious, I couldn’t remember where I was and what was going on. I was being held up by my two arms, extended. The doctor’s voice sounded like it was coming from underwater as she assured a patient, probably no older than one, that a shot was only going to hurt a little bit, jogging my memory as to where I was—I’m in my pediatrician’s office, in the bathroom, to do a urine sample minutes after I’d just given two vials of my blood, and I had just passed out. My eyes slowly peeled open, and my phone was on the floor under me, my cheek pressed against the side of the toilet bowl, my body half-laying-half-standing in between the toilet and the wall. I must have caught myself as I was going down, as my right arm was extended around the front of the toilet and my left holding the metal bar attached to the wall. 

I adjusted so I was sitting on the floor, a little scared to stand up. I swiped out of the text conversation with my mom, the text still unsent, and texted my two best friends instead: “holy shit i just fainted in the bathroom.” I grabbed my pink water bottle and drank as much water as I could in one breath, used the walls to help myself back up and opened the bathroom door.

An empty hallway stared back at me, the only pop of color being the lollipops toddlers got for completing their appointment. The nurses were preoccupied with other patients, or doing paperwork in another room at the other end of the hallway. I slowly closed the door and turned back around, facing myself in the mirror; my lips were the same color as the rest of my face. I sat in that bathroom for what felt like forever; the fan was overly loud, the lights were overly bright, and it was not helping the drained state my body was trying to come back from.

Eventually, I covered my pale lips back up with my mask and exited the bathroom, dropping the test cup in the drop off basket next to the door. I walked back to my examination room, the pink door decorated with a large sticker of Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled plastered onto it a little bit crooked, and if I hadn’t just fainted, I would’ve taken that as a good omen—Tangled has been my comfort movie since I was nine. On the other side of the door were the two nurses and a nurse I hadn’t seen yet today, all who had no idea I had just been on the floor of the bathroom. The new nurse assured me I was good to go in a tone that was overly sweet it was almost patronizing, as if I was my five-year-old self who had just finished getting a round of shots—except, this time, I wasn’t offered a lollipop.

But I did as she told me I could. I grabbed my bag, confirmed one more time there was nothing else I had to do, and left as fast as I could. I sat in my car, which was a little too warm but worked to wake my body back up, for about fifteen minutes in the parking lot, watching patients walk in and out. I didn’t end up texting my mom about giving blood until I was home, and after making sure I was okay, she laughed, pointing out that I was just like my cousin.

Since, I’ve openly and passionately declared that I’ll never get my blood taken again; just simply recalling the events on paper in this essay has made me lightheaded. The six-year-old girl who had to be held back by her grandma as she tried to sprint out of the examination room still lives with me today, and I’ll always think of her anytime I see a sharp, tiny, pokey object. However, despite it making me nauseated, I’m able to sit here and write about this experience—it was one, small moment in my life. Though I’ll probably recall this story until I die, it didn’t kill me. I will forever have a phobia needles, but I’m able to realize they will only affect me for the tiniest portion of my life. It’s how I got my nose pierced; yes, I cried, and a grown man named Cheppy had to hand me a few tissues, but now I have a fun hoop in my nose. Maybe one day I’ll muster up enough courage to get one of the tattoo’s I have saved in my Pinterest board, because I know it won’t kill me. They’ll just scare me a little too much. 

Edited by Kate Castello