On plucking up the guts...

I have never been good with medical things. I was never ill as a child and so never went to the doctors. My lasting memory of the doctors as a child is a smelly, old man sitting in a swivel leather chair in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Not the image you would expect to see today.
I stopped going to the dentist for 9 years when I was about 18. It took this long for me to get unbearable toothache. I had one filling and one removed. I thought that was a good trade off for 9 years without the biannual stress. However that's probably not what the dentist thought. Valium was prescribed and nurses were there to hold me down for the injections. I felt physically sick from the trauma of this and have been regularly ever since. However, I still have borderline hysteria before sitting in the chair - the sweats, shakes and tears.

When I was expecting my midwife refused to take my blood. It took my husband to have a day off work and take me to the hospital maternity department. There would be a nurse, midwife and blood specialist there as well as him to hold me down. This was not looking good for a birth plan. Up to 34 weeks everything looked fine. Then my midwife tells me the baby is now breach and that they want to try to turn him for a natural birth. The consultant and 10 onlooking students could not get him to turn so they booked me for a c-section. This was not good. More planned medical things were going to happen. I was shaking and sweating so much when they tried to do the epidural that it took at least 7 attempts to get the needle in.
After they had extended the cut to get my 9lb 5oz baby boys head out they put an extra drip in my ankle while I couldn't feel anything.
My second child was a natural birth and again my midwife skipped some blood tests to reduce the trauma for me and baby.

All of these were medical issues I couldn't escape from. However last week I finally plucked up the courage to contact the doctor about how I feel. I sent a letter in with a friend as I breakdown whenever I try to talk to a doctor. They made the appointment and I was pleasantly surprised. The doctor was fabulous. She was calm and reassuring, understanding and helpful. Two years ago when I went with similar things I was told that it would just go away. Now someone has finally taken me seriously and told me I'm stressed and depressed. It feels such a relief to know there is someone who wants to help. I've never felt like this about the medical profession before. I fear there is worse to come in blood tests and counselling, but the relief is immense.

DOPEY