Medical

This & That.

Sometimes, I wonder,

 

Maybe it all stems from when I fell off the changing table as an infant. 

 

Maybe I had some sort of brain damage that led to my seizure disorder that was contained during my childhood years. I remember them making me stay up all night long for the next days EEG test.

 

My poor Saint of a mother would keep Rainbow Brite and snacks on replay and would struggle worse than I to keep her eyes open those drawn out hours.

 

They'd hook me up with tiny little octopus suckers all over my scalp. It'd take forever. "Almost done", they'd say over and over to my squirmy, now hyped-up little body. The test took hours and they'd patiently wait for me to fall asleep naturally.

 

All I cared about was defying their coaxing and stared at their faces thru the giant window that separated us. Stubborn.

 

I could tell they wanted to shake me when I never did cooperate and the test never gave the results they sought. Instead, they scraped my scalp with a cold metal "something" to remove all of the glue off of my head. That was punishment enough. 

 

Then, my last seizure I ever had was witnessed by Mr. Mario Brother himself. I got up, mid-seize, walked to my bathroom and watched my face turn into a Picasso painting. I couldn't speak, but I stood and watched my face bend and stretch in a way that I'll never forget as long as I live. I may not remember what I wore yesterday, but that image is forever burned into my brain.

 

Then, at barely age six, I took the proverbial bullet for my sister as she spooked the dog that I was petting. My face was closest, so he decided to punish me, instead. In hindsight, it was like a moment from the Walking Dead. The headline should've been "Zombie Dog Attempted to Eat the Face Off of Little Girl". 

 

Everyone asks me "how bad did that hurt?" Actually, it didn't hurt at all. Don't ask me how it didn't. I thought he had just licked me real good. I didn't even know anything was wrong until my mom screamed bloody murder when she saw my mangled face.  

 

The ambulance ride was terrifying. I screamed the entire way that they do "ANYTHING BUT STITCHES!!!". They listened...they brought me into an operating room and put me under. They inserted three metal, bendable stick things that they had to pull out of my face once I healed. While conscious. Torture.

 

I remember them holding me down before Kindergarten to shoot my butt up with some vaccine concoction deemed necessary for my attendance. Took several nurses and behavioral threats from my mother to complete the task. I hate being poked at.

 

Then there was the time that a model airplane literally went thru the palm of my hand. No, I wasn't a magician. In a matter of a few freakish seconds I went from holding a metal toy airplane to having its right wing completely penetrate the fattest part of my right palm, just below my thumb. I pulled out my best pre-teenage negotiating tactics to convince these professionals that I didn't need stitches again. Wrong.

 

I also recall enduring a blood drawl in my teens that literally landed me on the floor of the doorway to the exam room. I hate needles.

 

After being told and coaxed this way or that during four of my five labors, I've been poked, prodded, and epidural-ed more times than Michelle Duggar has been pregnant.  

 

Then, when last years crazy happened, I began to lose what little hope I had left in my heart for the medical community. A panic attack, an elevated heart rate and they shoot me twice with an adrenaline like substance, to make my heart...well, I'm not even sure WHAT they were trying to accomplish. All it did was made me feel like I couldn't breathe and my heart feel like a giant ice cube...frozen and extremely heavy. My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets both times they shot me with this, this "whatever it was".  

 

"You won't die from this condition."  

 

Those were the famous parting words of the Doctor that was consumed with my care that weekend. He said it in his native Slovakian accent which I cannot even attempt to recreate.  

 

But, you see, it did kill me.  

 

While I'm not mortally dead, I am now filled with a ridiculous fear for anything to go wrong where I have to come face to face with these people again. Yes, I know they were just trying to help. I know it's their job and I know that in a lot of ways, they're necessary in this fallen world.  

 

Three weeks ago, I caved and went to a clinic with a sore throat that was slightly extreme in nature and lasted a bit too long. I always cringe when they take my vitals. I know what they'll find everytime.  

 

146.  Her confused, harrowed look completely gave her away. 

"That must not be right, let me do it again." 

 

same results. 

 

"Are you okay?!" She cried, not knowing if she should go find help or call an ambulance.  

 

"I'm fine, just nervous. I always get this way when I'm getting checked out." 

 

Relieved, she continues the exam, but cautiously, almost waiting for my body to faint out of the chair.  

 

She he insists she check my heartrate again before I leave to "make the paperwork look pretty" she said. I gathered it was to cover her own butt.

 

So she happily wrote down 116. "Muuuuuch better, she said. Still not good, but better." 116 is like walking to the car for me...that's nothing.  

 

I left there with a $4 prescription for a bottle of lidocaine and no better off than before.  

 

The only Doctor I've seen in my life that hasn't made me feel like I'm dying doesn't even prescribe medicine. Imagine that. 

 

I go back to my Cardiologist within the next 8-10 weeks for a check-up and I'm seriously dreading it. Dreading the amount I'll have to pay for him to use his stethoscope on me and say "see ya next year". But, I feel that I can't miss it...because, "what if...". What if somethings changed.  

 

And that's where I live most of my moments. Equally terrified and trapped by the very ones who have only done what they know to be helpful in my times of medical need. 

 

Its another fear I wish to be free of. 

 

Is there anything medical that you're scared of?! Any scars you have? I'd love to hear about it.