Up until age 5 or so I had little reason to be wary of medical situations. That all changed when I began to suffer breathing difficulties when I was about 5. One night my parents took me to the hospital and they wanted to admit me. My innocence tripped me up and I willingly agreed to stay. Thus began 5 days of "lessons" in fear.
Factors and situations: Every time my mother left my room, it seemed, a nurse would appear with a monstrous hypo and draw blood or administer drugs. A very painful test of some sort where a needle was stuck in my arm. A threat by my Grandmother that if I didn't eat my dinner one night that "they", meaning doctors or nurses, would give me an IV and it would hurt really bad and I better eat or that's what they would do to me. Then, a few days later I had my tonsils removed, and it seemed that the nurse would just lurk outside my room and wait until my parents left and then "pounce" with a needle.
There was an older child in the same room, this was before I was to be taken into the OR, and she had a "dreaded" IV. Therefore, I feared that I might have to get one, but luckily that never happened. My trip to the OR was the end of the innocence. I recall waving to my mom and dad, saying that I would see them later, oh so casually. Memories of the crib-style railing on the gurney and the typical hallway ceiling with its acoustic tile and harsh fluorescent lights come to mind as I re-visit my first serious experience with the medical establishment.
Once in the OR, I was lifted onto the table, and became slightly alarmed when I didn't recognize the doctor with all his hospital attire and face mask. Vaguely I can see the details of the room, tiled walls, a tank of nitrous oxide that I would soon be inhaling. Then the anesthesiologist placed a mask over my nose and mouth and told me to breathe normally. That was hard to do, as the odor was so sickly sweet. I almost gagged, but not before I was out cold.
In what seemed like minutes later, I awoke lying face down in the same crib-barred bed, a few small drops of dried blood staining the white sheet by my open mouth. My throat might as well have been filled with broken glass, and speaking was nearly impossible. I went to sit up, and no sooner than I lifted my head, a nurse with big fluffy red hair simply and wordlessly pushed my face back down onto the sheet. I tried again to sit, and she repeated her action. So I gave up, and soon fell asleep until they took me back to my room. Oddly enough, I don't ever remember being that scared in any of these situations.
Then, in my early teens I suffered a broken bone in my hand. I was taken to the hospital and I remember feeling slightly fearful. The only bad part was where the doctor had to set the bone. He said to me as he made a motion to grab my hand, "I'm going to push down here and you are going to say ouch." Oh no you don't, I thought, pulling my hand defensively behind my back. This was my first attempt at passive resistance. But he seized my arm and did what he said he was going to do. And I said what he had told me I would. It hurt but was done so fast I didn't have the chance to get scared.
But the first episode of what I call the "pall of black dread" was to come. I went back for an x-ray after a couple weeks with my hand in a splint, and the bone had shifted. So the doctor said a few choice words of terror in describing his next plan: an operation to pin the bone together with a piece of metal wire. I felt as though I'd faint right there. My heart raced, and I wanted to run away. I lived in dread until the day of surgery, trying to reason with my mom to get out of it somehow. But even at that young age I knew that something had to be done about it, but I really didn't like what the doctor had proposed.
Of course there was my nemesis the IV awaiting me, so I begged the anesthesiologist (when I met with him in the pre-op visit) to put me to sleep with the gas and then do the IV. He said the IV was much better and wouldn't hurt that badly.
So, I went to prepare for the surgery, shedding my clothes and donning a hospital gown. Since they had decided to do the IV in the OR, I was given the "wondrous" experience of taking myself to the OR. A nurse led me down the hallway, and stopped short of the OR door, which was wide open, and told me to just go in. There I stood, like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz, having made it thus far down the wide, sterile-looking corridor. There was no billowing flame and thunderous voice, and I didn't fall flat on my back, but I really could have turned and ran, crashing through a door to get away.
The expanse of the room loomed before me, and I could sense the cold, hard floor through my stocking feet. The table sat in the center, ready to support my soon to be unconscious body, and Dr. A. and his assistants buzzed around like wasps tending the nest. They seemed not to notice me standing there, suspended by fearful indecision, lurking on the threshold. The nurse who had led me into the chamber was still somewhere behind me, and she told me again to go ahead in. I took a cautious step into the gleaming blue room, and then another, as my heart surged like an engine at full throttle. Resigned to my fate, I approached the table, turned my back to it and attempted to boost myself up onto it with my good arm. I had to be careful not to moon any of the staff working behind me. But my repeated efforts were insufficient. Dr. A noticed my struggle and without hesitation he lifted me up onto the table.
No sooner than I had positioned myself as comfortably as possible, someone was busily unwrapping the ace bandage that held the plaster splint against my arm and hand. My hand was exposed on an extension of the table, and the anesthesiologist appeared by my left side and said he was going to start the IV. Instantly the fear became overwhelming, and I begged him to use the gas instead. He tried to get me to let him do the needle, but I was adamant, so moments later he clapped the mask on my face and foul fumes filled my nostrils. I gagged again, nauseated by the diesel truck exhaust-scented air flowing into the mask. Someone told me to close my eyes, and I did.
After a timeless period of nothingness, I came to in the recovery room, hand swathed in a huge, bulky bandage encasing a fresh splint. It ached dully, but otherwise it was not too bad. Dr. A came out later and said that the break was worse than he thought, and he had to make an incision. Originally he was just going to shoot the wire through the break, right through the skin, nail-gun style. But he had to open it up and drill the hole to insert the wire. Actually, wire is not the best term. The thing was the thickness of a roofing nail, and about 3" long. But it was covered and I didn't have to see it, even the part that protruded out of my knuckle, just as though it had been hammered into my joint, passing the length of the bone back to my wrist.
When the time came for the stitches to be removed a week or so later, I almost fainted. The sight of that piece of metal imbedded in my flesh was unrelentingly horrifying. I kept thinking that I had this thing stuck in me, and I wanted it out. That was really the only bad thing afterward, the notion of that piece of metal sticking up out of my knuckle. It was always kept covered, but I still had to look at it when they changed the dressing. When it was to be removed I nearly freaked, but there was no pain. In fact, as I was sweating bullets, head turned away, I asked Dr. A. when he was going to take it out. He said "look on the counter over there. I already did."
I had a few oral surgeries in subsequent years, with similar phobic episodes. One doctor actually insisted that I be hospitalized for a procedure that could be done in his office, because he didn't want to deal with me when I was awake. All through this period I had many nightmares about doctors, hospitals and associated paraphernalia and situations.
When I had my wisdom teeth out I was in the pre-op area and the anesthesiologist came in to start the IV I could barely stand the terror. He tossed the tubing onto the foot of my stretcher, and he may as well have dropped a rattlesnake at my feet. I begged and pleaded for him not to hurt me, gasping and crying, and my mother stepped in and asked him to numb the area on my hand where he was to put the needle. He did and I felt no pain, only nausea and dizziness and sheer dread. It was only when he had attached to my hand the fearsome device did I realize that nearly every one in the room was staring at me. Ahh, so many memories of being trapped, tortured and terrorized are what I now continue to associate with medical procedures.
When I was in my early 20's, I was having pain in my feet from standing in one place all day where I worked. I went to a doctor who advertised a free consult in a local paper. So I went to see him and (funny thing he shared his office with a dentist, oddly I don't have any unusual fear of my dentist) the first thing out of his mouth after he briefly examined me was that he wanted to stick needles in my feet! Immediately I felt that the walls were closing in on me, my lungs were constricted, and the exit seemed awful far away. Nausea struck me suddenly and my heart raced. For a moment I had the desire to shove the doctor out of my way and make a run for it. I may as well have been trapped in a pit with a hungry tiger - escape was of paramount importance. It was all I could do to move because I was so terrified, sort of like in a nightmare where the _____ is chasing me and I can only move in slow motion. Talking was difficult as well, and I mumbled some excuse about having to leave immediately and I simply said I would get a second opinion and I dashed out of the office, looking back to be sure I wasn't being followed. Getting out the door brought immediate relief, like a postman slamming the gate on a vicious dog. I got in my car and peeled rubber out of the parking lot, looking over my shoulder for a short time there after.
A Chronological History:
January 1976: Tonsillectomy
Circa 1983: broken bone in right hand surgically set and pinned
Circa 1984: oral surgery
Circa 1985: oral surgery
1988: wisdom teeth removal (all 4)
In all of the above I was hospitalized and put under general anesthesia.
1999: Lasik vision correction (I now have 20/15 vision!)
2000: Excision of a mole on my right arm
2001: full abdominoplasty and medial thigh lift (general anesthesia and hospitalization)
2003: arthroscopy of left knee (general anesthesia and outpatient. I have been pain-free so far)
