Fear..

Releasing my hand, after having checked my pulse, the doctor jotted down something. “I will need this blood report by tomorrow evening before we go ahead with the surgery.”

“Oh sure, definitely!” Impulsive yet confidently, I replied with a cursory smile. I guess its pure coincidence that he told me about the test after he had taken my pulse reading which I believe was now beating faster.

I placed his test recommendation slip in my pocket and started walking down to the lab. After walking through clean, alleys I located the bold red words “Pathology Laboratory” at the end of the hallway. I told the ward boy about my test and he directed me to sit out with the other patients waiting anxiously for their turn.

There were about 7-8 boys and girls, who later I discovered had come for routine check up under corporate health policy, waiting for their turn for the blood tests. These patients were unlike the usual ones – ill, pale, or ailing. They were very much like me. Healthy, fit and well! One by one they were going in and coming back with a folded elbow. Some with triumphant smiles and couple of them with tears.

With each of them coming out my turn was getting closer and inevitable. There was something that was bothering me now. Fear! I must say. They all had it. Unlike them I was not carrying it on, kinesthetically.

This is where things get slightly messy.

Fully aware of damaging my macho image, I confess that I am totally scared of needles! This red, hemoglobin rich liquid, by nature, should be inside my body. I am perfectly fine as long as it stays there. The trouble starts only when somebody straps a black band around my arm, asks me to tighten my fist, injects a sharp needle inside the bulging nerve and sucks out a few milliliters of it. Phew!

Finally it was time. I reached the lab. I placated myself saying that those days I was a little boy, now I was a 26 year old. Though that never actually put me to ease I tried to believe it. I was now sitting at the hot seat which was hotter than the usual.

The lab assistant approached me, needle in her hand. I turned away and stared at the open road when she took my right arm in her custody. I felt my whole body going cold. My forehead, I found, was sweating. I knew this feeling. The same feeling I have had as a little boy.

The problem with having an imaginative mind is that, it shows images in your mind that are far worse than what is actually going on.

While I looked up and saw blurred images of the medicine racks someone loaded the film roll and turned on the projector in my minds eye. Vivid images of the needle puncturing into the nerve, blood rushing in with great velocity as the piston draws back, blood spluttering out through the small orifice made by the needle, after the syringe is pulled out.

GOD! As I said, I should rather have looked at what was going on instead of turning away.

At times in life there are moments which seem like ages. These are such moments of my life. And I know I have many such more waiting for me. And these moments last more than you wish them to much unlike to those which you wish to last.

I staggered out of the lab and walked out I started getting a funny feeling. Rejecting it as yet another fragment of my imagination I walked and crashed on to the bench outside. The guy next to me completely perplexed in the change of personality in me offered a smile

“Better?..Feeling better?”
“Er..hm..what..yeah..”
“Drink some water. Wash your face”
“Yeah..hmm..yes…er”
“Blood test?”
“Nope, HIV test”
“Oh! don’t worry things will be fine, I can understand how you feel!” he smiled sympathetically, which was nothing more than a smirk.

I did not reply knowing that he would take leave, stay home, roll all over the floor and laugh at the joke for three full days and two full nights, share it with his friends…

I simply smiled back and then kept walking towards home…

And for you who now know that I am scared of needles I have something joyful to share.

I am HIV NON REACTIVE!!