Doctors, medicines, needles… and the Phobia! – Part II

Some people are born with some or the other phobia; others just catch on along the way. And even though doctors, medicines & needles have become such a constant part of our lives, like I previously mentioned, some people still don’t take too kindly to them.

I googled to find a few related phobias and got a big list of them.

Trypanophobia is the extreme fear of medical procedures involving injections or hypodermic needles.

Latrophobia is a fear of doctors.

Medication phobia (also known as pharmacophobia) is the fear of taking medications.

Blood phobia or Haemophobia – do I even need to say what that is?

Honestly, doctors never bothered me much. My only problem with them, as with most things, is patience – waiting hour after hour in the clinic for your turn to come, remembering to take the medicines everyday, before food, after food, after certain number of hours. Tonics, capsules, syrups… and then watch your diet – no salt, cheese, pickles, no eating out, no ice creams or sweets. Blah…

Needles are therefore better, one shot and you are done. How I wish everything in life was that simple… (sigh)

My cousin Mru is the best example of inborn phobias, she cries – like really breaks down and cries – if you approach her with a bunch of tablets. She hates taking medicines, she hates the sight of them… so getting sick is the worst thing to happen to her. When she gets fever, she prefers sleeping through the seven day cycle rather than popping a crocin. Even when she’s forced to take it, she makes you break it in quarters so that it would go down easily her tiny throat or worse – dissolve it in water so she would gulp it down with a crucified look on her face. In fact she even prefers the needle just to escape the torture of taking medicines.

This one time we were at my grandma’s place and she came down with a bad bout of flu. And the doctor, to her intense horror, prescribed her an elaborate dose of 5 different tablets and capsules to be taken 3 times a day. She was nearly hysterical. She just wouldn’t take them. Everyone, including her mother just gave in to her tantrums, but not me. I became her worst nightmare; I would sit down and not let her move until she swallowed every last crumble of her tablets between snobs and sniffs.

I don’t know if I managed to cure her phobia because since then, I’ve somehow never been around her when she falls sick.

Then again, there’s my other cousin Vandan. As the eldest of the three sisters, she is always the mature, responsible one… and sometimes such things can take you a bit too far.

We were having a function at out house, and all my relatives had come over. I was going out of my way to help out (by which I mean that my mother had dragged me to a corner and threatened me with consequences worse than death if I dint get my butt off the couch and do some work). I don’t know how exactly it happened, but as clumsy and accident-prone as I am, no one was surprised when I ended up with the heavy wooden stool with sharp edge down on my toes. Three cracked toes nails and a sizable pool of blood was the verdict.

My father promptly took me to the doctor, and Vandan tai insisted she come with me. Now, she wasn’t phobic of blood, no faint heart either but the sight of my mangled toes was enough to keep everyone away, even my father, but she stood there stony-faced nonetheless with one hand holding mine and the other clutched at her own heart as the doc did his job.

I was fine; I have been through the entire drill so many times I could have slept through it. And she seemed to be handling pretty well all the snipping, cleaning, sowing that was going on at the tip of foot, until...

Until the time came to pull out a toe and her carefully maintained facade started to wear off. The doc then adjusted the tongs to the toe and that’s it, she cracked… just like a scene straight out of a sitcom, she dug her nails in my palm so hard I forgot all the pain in my toes and screamed out loud. The doc jumped (only slightly), he hadn’t even begun to apply pressure. He didn’t realised what the yelling was all about, until I wriggled my hand out of Vandu tai’s grasp and ordered her out.

She gladly waited out with my dad then, only coming in to help me hop out of the clinic.

She’s all cured of her phobias now though. She doesn’t get scared of anything anymore she says, least of all blood. Oh no! I’m not trying to claim responsibility here; apparently going through the process of becoming a mother cures you out of all that.

So much for inborn phobias...

My phobia, however, is acquired... and how!

But it’s a bloody thrilling story, and I really want to do it justice. So disappointed as you are going to be after reading this, I must ask you to have patience till my next post.

Till then, have a great weekend people!

Image from GOOGLE Where else?