Express & Echo (City & East Devon Edition)
Finally growing out of my needles fear, but flying ...
THEY do say that the maternal instinct is the strongest of all human urges. You hear of women discovering superhuman strength to lift a whole car off their trapped child.
I certainly can’t claim to have done anything so heroic myself. But now I come to think of it, being a mum has, at times, forced me to get over myself in ways that I – pre-children – would never have expected. Take needles, for example.
In my early 20s, I decided that I was never going to have an injection again. I couldn’t face it, no way, no how. I hated needles, injections, all that stuff. I would not discuss them, watch them on TV and certainly not endure them myself.
And for a good decade or more, I did just that. My tetanus elapsed. I went travelling to foreign climes without inoculations. And when my employers offered me a free flu jab, I told them where to stick it. Which was most definitely not in my arm, thank you very much.
Then I found myself expecting Luke, my first child, and was informed in no uncertain terms that I needed to get myself to a clinic and fill up several bottles of blood (shudder) extracted from my arm (double shudder) to be tested for all sorts of possible problems with the baby. There was, it seemed, no way around it.
And so I did it. I got on with it and did it. The baby needed to be OK, so I had to have the blood tests.
The end. I still remember the name of the Spanish nurse who was so kind to me – Pilar.
Even though it got a bit stressful when Pilar said in wonderment: “I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss. Your veins are lovely, darling.
“I can easily slide the needle in just here, look…” and I started shaking my head and shouting “La la la, not listening! Not looking! Don’t say the words needle and veins to me!”
I’ll be honest, the fear of needles didn’t go away overnight after that.
I made the most almighty fuss over all my blood tests during my first pregnancy.
Indeed, the reason I opted for a natural birth was that I didn’t fancy the idea of an epidural to kill the pain, given that it meant having a needle inserted into my spinal cord. (Yes, I am well aware now of what a short-sighted decision that was.)
I wasn’t much better by the time that baby was about seven and he was having some headaches.
But even so, I took Luke along to have acupuncture.
Someone or other had recommended it and I decided I would just carefully make sure not to look as the needles went in.
Off we went to the consultation and the acupuncturist was at pains to reassure my son the needles would not hurt at all.
“I mean, look, let’s just put one into mummy, shall we?”
And without so much as a by-youleave she stuck an acupuncture needle into my arm.
I watched the extra-large end of it twanging back and forth like a metronome.
They are so fine that they are very bendy, are acupuncture needles. I gasped. “Wah-wah-wah” went the sound in my ears and black spots danced before my eyes, which promptly filled with hot, terrified tears.
Left to my own devices, I would have run screaming from the room, returning only to threaten legal action.
But Luke needed me to be calm. This was the time to pull myself together and so, for my son’s sake, I did just that: “Ah ha ha ha! Yes exactly,” I said. “It’s no big deal at all. Ah ha ha ha! Can’t feel a thing. Now, please, GET IT OUT OF ME.”
By the same token, whenever we go on a flight together as a family. I’m the soul of jollity and good humour.
And my lucky kids can always have the window seat, as far as I’m concerned.
The last thing I want to do is look out of the window. Do they know that I’m gripping the arm rests and praying during take-off and landing?
No, they do not. Nor do they realise that I’m pretending we are on a train and not 35,000 feet in the air.
Fast forward a few more years and life has moved on apace.
My younger son William is just home from flying insouciantly South East Asia on his gap year.
And here I am at home, perfectly used to having a Covid and a flu jab every year. Both of which I receive with thanks and the absolute minimum of fuss.
How times change…