cakap cakap....blood tests.

These last four weeks, I have been subjected to a number of medical test that has so far confirmed that I have Gout, a Hernia that keeps popping up at the most inconvenient of times and high cholesterol...but my blood pressure, my heart and my brain function are all normal. Still have a problem with my kidney...renal failure was mentioned and I have been having scans to try and find out where the problem lies. 

Three days ago one of the scans I have had tells the Doctor that there is a Cyst on or close to the kidney...whatever. And that Cyst may be benign, active or just be a Cyst that 30% of those at my age has as part of our rite of passage when you are past sixty. She wants me to do another blood test to confirm what sort of a Cyst it was.

Now this would be my third blood test in the last two weeks. I am a grown man and blood tests do not bother me. This time around the nurse had problems finding a vein to stick the needle in. After much clenching of my fist and taps on my arms by the nurse to find a vein, she finally settled on a vein she found on my wrist.  

Not good! 

Sticking a big needle in your wrist is within your line of sight and you cannot simply look away and pretend you are interested in that advert on the wall of the clinic  about immunisation for kids. 

So I made conversation with the nurse. 

I asked her if she had ever stuck the needle at a spot where the anaesthetic was not rubbed on to deaden the pain? She asked me what anaesthetic? I said the one she was rubbing on my wrist now. She said that is no anaesthtic...that was just something to wash the germs away!

At 69 years of age, after having so many needles poked into me for injections and for drawing blood...I just found out that they have been doing it without giving me, or anyone else, anything to deaden the pain! What lah!

Of course, I felt the pain this time around! Much, much, more that I have felt any pain before when they have injected a needle into me. Why? Because in my mind, before this, that thing that they rub on you before they jab the needle into you, was to deaden or numb the pain....and I just found out that it was not! So how not to feel the pain? 

See how the power of the mind works? It can make you not feel pain where there is pain! 

Moral of this story? 

Even when you are close to reaching your Seventh Decade of life...there are still things to learn....and I am not looking forward to my next injection or blood test!