I have it. I found that out yesterday, unfortunately.

If you don't know, trypanophobia is an irrational fear of needles. I always knew I was afraid of needles, but I didn't quite realise how bad I had it until yesterday.

Yesterday, you see, I had something of an episode. Breathing became hard, my heart went heavy and fast, and my body weak, mainly my appendages. So my parents took me to hospital. There wasn't much in the way of people there, so we didn't have to wait too long to see the nurse-practitioner. He gave me a short check-up and then decided that I needed a blood test. This would have been fine, I wasn't watching, after all. I did shake profusely, however, insisting they didn't draw blood, and that I didn't need a blood test. So the blood test was over pretty quickly. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that they kept the needle in. They took the pipe or syringe or whatever (I didn't see) out, and left the needle in, in case I needed to be administered with any medicines quickly. This was the bad part. After the blood test, I was still shaking. They injected some saline water to clear the needle out, which is one of the strangest feelings I've ever experienced. They took me down for the fun part (or would-have-been fun), the X-Ray. I like X-Rays. It's awesome that we can see inside our own bodies like that. Unfortunately, there was still the problem of the needle. While I was waiting for the X-Ray, I fainted. This had nothing at all to do with my episode, or what I had at all. It was out of fear. I knew consciously that there was nothing wrong with the needle being in, and that all it was doing was just sitting there, but I still fainted. I was shaking in my chair, and muttering something like "Get it out... Get it out...", and I fainted. When I came too, I wasn't feeling great, but not terrible either. I was still shaking, and muttering, but at least I could think and see and hear properly. So the hospital staff decided the best thing was for me to be put in a wheelchair, so that I didn't fall over if I fainted again. I was taken in, and I got my X-Ray in the wheelchair. They said nothing was wrong, and took me back to the waiting room to see a doctor. In the waiting room, I fainted again. I felt very bad on the way to the waiting room, my vision was blurred and my hearing was bad. When I arrived, I thought I was going to throw up, so I asked for a sick bag. I didn't throw up, but while I was waiting, I did faint again. The next thing I can remember was being wheeled off to a little room, where I was supposed to see the doctor. When I was put on the bed, I felt much better. It's weird, how I can feel so bad sitting down and then almost totally fine lying down. And all this time, or for a lot of it, I was muttering "Get it out... Take it out... I don't want the needle... take out the needle" or something like that. I had to wait a further hour, in a cold room, for the blood test results to come back. It was a cold room, and I didn't move my arm at all in fear of the needle piercing my vein and causing a bad bruise or something. It's like when you tie a string around your finger and it goes purple, only it didn't go purple, it just went white.

So, basically, the results came in, and they were fine. I had a needle in me for 3 hours and fainted twice for nothing. I still don't know what's wrong, all I know is that I don't have pneumonia, and that I have a massive fear of needles. Hopefully I can get better soon, and I might eventually get over my trypanophobia.

Well, that's a rather boring explanation of what I did yesterday. I hope you enjoyed it, because my arm's going weak just thinking about what happened.

Rav