Mike - I feel your pain. Just HEARING my Marine Corps son-in-law talk about how good he is at donating - and how he and the other guys have contests to see who can fill the bag soonest makes me queasy. (Give me a minute - I need to lie down.)
When I was in college we had to have a TB test before we could go into classrooms. I dreaded it for weeks, but finally the deadline loomed and off to the clinic I went. This doesn't even involve blood. Just a tiny prick - teeny tiny even. Of course, I passed out. Nurse had never seen anything like it. From then on - when we had to renew this - and we had to every year. The nurse would ask if I'd been around anyone with TB. When I'd say "no" she'd sign the paper and tell me to get out of there.
An earlier do I had refused to give me a shot unless I was lying on the table. He'd had another patient walk out after a shot, pass out on the sidewalk, and knock out her two front teeth.
I got married in the dark ages when you had to have a blood test to get your license. That really made me think hard - a lifetime together? No prob. But ... was he REALLY worth the dreaded blood test?
We've been married 33 years so - I guess so!
So ... when the D diagnoses came in neither my mother or my husband could believe that I could deal with this. Guess you do whatever you have to.
I still don't look at the needle or the actual insertion process. My husband was in a men's Bible study group when I first started injections. I had to inject for the first time right before he left for this class. He brought me a wet rag to put on my forehead as I lay on the couch afterwards and lovingly told me they'd pray for me at his class. oh my. And ... he must have done so because for months afterwards each of those sweet men would come up to me once in a while and ask me how I was doing. Bless them!
So ... if you're a bit shy with the needle.... count, sing, pray, don't look, whatever it takes, but ... YOU CAN DO THIS!
