I’m on a trip to Alice Springs now that the school holidays are over. I’ll write about them on another blog instead since that makes more sense and it gets annoying when all this stuff is mixed up. I think you can check the website here for other blogs by me. You can check it on my profile.

Anyway, yesterday was my birthday and it was great. I don’t know how, but the subject of needles came up. Ironically, I hate needles. Always have.

But this is a funny story about needles that you must know. On school morning Mum had to come to school with me so I could get a needle. The nurse told me to look at Mum when I got it. She was right, but I was a bit curious at first, which is bad because it makes you more curious about it and it hurts more. I think this was our манту needle. I’m not sure what it’s called in English. It probably doesn’t matter. We had to get the needle once a year, which sucks, really. Or was this a blood test I had this time? I cant remember, but I was very brave, apparently. There were lots of kids that had to get needles, so they had to be quick and Mum and I had to specify that I was left-handed, so that they wouldn’t use my left arm and leave that one sore, making it harder to write.

Anyway, I got the манту needled and they were going to check the results a couple days later. Then night before they were going to check the results, it was huge. There was a tiny bright red speck in the centre, and then there were rings around it that were paler pink the further they were form the centre. There were about two or three rings, it looked a bit like a dartboard, and it was so big, about the size of a tennis ball and stretching from both sides of my arm, the lower one, I think this is the one that isn’t your forearm, between your wrist and elbow. I showed Mum it in the evening, complaining that it was intensely itchy. So I went to bed that night, and a miracle happened. When I woke up the next day, it was only a third it’s size, about 2 cm in diameter or something, much to our relief.

I was to school, wondering in the changing room for sports at school what size other’s would have their spots, since we were wearing either blouses or long-sleeved shirts, because that is just modesty in Russia. i thought that other’s would be bigger, but when the doctors at school saw mine, they absolutely freaked out. Apparently, it was too big and this was dangerous because I was allergic to the needles or vulnerable to the disease or something.

It was such a relief that they hadn’t seen the spot the I had the night before. I thought that if they had, they would have screamed, fainted, and eventually rushed me off to hospital. Thankfully, this didn’t happen.

And also, well, I hated needle. This meant that I could say I was allergic to the needles and I could go and get an alternative one done with my parents, if we remembered, which we did sometimes. I didn’t get the needle half the time if I remember correctly, which is great because needles are horrible.

The other one makes little bubbles inside your skin and makes your skin there look yellow. It felt funny and didn’t hurt as much as the other one. Which was great, but took an awful lot more effort to get done.

I could tell you more about needles, but why would I? They also have them in Canada, which was so annoying because well, figure it out for yourself. We were on a home assignment in Canada, and Mum and Dad decide it would be best they didn’t tell us we were going to get needles, because otherwise it would be hard to get us out the door. So we got there, I was so surprised. Our whole family got them, and I waited until absolute last with heaps of protesting a bickering, Dad literally had to hold down my arm. I gave in, and it was so anticlimactic, it didn’t hurt, it kind of tickled. I got a clown eraser.

Another time I got a blood test and I was about eight or something, and the nurse tried to convince me the needle was just a pencil, with an “ик”, little make it little. I was screaming my head off. Once I got it and we were leaving, Mum said I scared the little girl outside half to death. I reckon she was right.

Dad said that when I was a baby, I had to get a needle in my tummy because I had a difficult birth. People often say that you don’t remember those things, but Dad reckons that it imprinted something subconsciously in me to fear needles.

I’m not so scared of them anymore, more scared of my previous fear of them.

I got a needle this year, and Martina got one at about the same time. I tried to stay calm and everything. I did pretty well, but Martina said I looked like I was about to cry. I believe her, but at least I didn’t scare anyone half to death or scream my head off. My fragile mood during the time didn’t exactly help either…

ANYWAYS, that’s enough about needles.

 

 

 


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