I have never had an issue with needles. Getting vaccinations was a simple task of deep breaths and not looking at the needle directly. When I was in high school, there was a period of time I had to get blood drawn once a month because I was on Acutaine (I have no idea how to spell it). By the end of the course, I was a pro at it, no big deal. Then, a little over a year ago, I had to have a steroid injection to alleviate a herniated disc in my back. I was lying face-down in an operating-type room so I wasn’t worried about the injections. The doctor had to inject a dye and then the steroid. All I remember is the feeling of something cold in my back. Then I was waking up with the nurses calling my name. I had passed out. I was extremely embarrassed, thinking that I had caused them all sorts of distress, but the doctor told me that it’s pretty common in young males. I thought nothing more of it.
Fast forward to when I had to get some vaccinations before coming to China and the same thing happened when I got 2 in one arm. I didn’t think to mention the one time I had fainted because I had been fine so many other times. But, sure enough, I fainted then too, scaring the hell out of the nurse and my mom. After the initial shock wore off, and I had woken up, the nurse mentioned that for people who tend to faint when sitting up, laying down when getting the injections prevents them from fainting. Again, I didn’t worry too much about it.
Now for the part of the story that makes the last two paragraphs relevant. When the time came for my surgery, a nurse came and gave me a shot in the hip/buttock region. After waiting a minute for the blood to clot, I got out of bed and walked to the hall where they had a gurney to take me down to the operating room. At this point I was a little nervous, but I think a perfectly acceptable amount when having surgery 6000 miles away from home and in a country where you don’t speak the language. We took the elevator down and then the nurse wheeled me down a long corridor to the operating room. A little more nervous at this point. They got me all situated on the operating table and then start hooking me up to things. I was not expecting to hear my pulse start bleeping and blooping over loudspeakers like a bad Bill Cosby impersonation. It sounded a bit fast at first, most likely due to the ever increasing nervousness, and hearing it did nothing to calm me down. I would take some deep breaths and it would slow down, only to speed up a few seconds later. I was fighting a losing battle.
The problem came when the anesthesiologist came to give me my pain-pain-go-away medicine. As he was only using local anesthetic, the required course of action was an epidural route. It wasn’t until he told me to curl into a nice fetal position that I realized what exactly was going on. I barely had time to tell the Young Doctor that the last time I had an injection there I passed out.
The next thing I knew I was coming to, no longer in my perfect fetal position. I had passed out. After I regained enough of my mental faculty, I apologized to the Young Doctor who was quite understanding during the whole escapade. I felt really awful for scaring the whole operating room like that, even though they are trained medical professionals. They spent a few minutes getting me to come around and gave me a shot of something into my IV. Then I was told that the anesthesiologist had to start again (I’m assuming he quickly pulled the syringe out of my back when I started to lose all control over my body). After the initial sensation of the syringe going in again, the next thing I remember is waking up back in my bed upstairs in the room I was staying in. All in all, it was quite the experience.
That’s all for now. It is taking me a bit longer since I’ve started tutoring. I now tutor 2 hours every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday. It isn’t a ton of preparation, but it does take a bit of time to figure out what I’m going to do and get any materials together that I need to. I will do my best to keep the updates coming!