Doesn't everyone cry during blood tests?

Why bravery isn’t what you think it is.

Caution for those with medical triggers or trauma. This post includes hospitals, needles and blood tests.

This week I got a blood test. Not because anything was particularly wrong but because Eden, my boyfriend, was getting a genetic test done. So like the little sheep I am following my boyfriend around, he shepherded me into the Bangkok Hospital to accompany him and I thought why not also check how I could be even more optimal in life. Because isn’t that what life’s all about? Reaching our optimal, genetic peaks? Or is life just about feeling good all the time?

At the moment I sit somewhere in-between Bryan Johnson and Kramer. But I have found myself at both extreme ends of the living forever→living like there’s no tomorrow spectrum, throughout different eras of my life.

I live a little… but also know when to reel it in.

Bryan Johnson, the man trying to live forever and Kramer, from sitcom Seinfeld living hedonistically.

So back to the blood test—this wasn’t my first blood test nor would it be my last, but just like every other blood test before it, the same thing happened—it’s like clockwork… every time I enter any form of medical space…

As soon as I smell that hospital-grade cleanliness, see the gurneys, people in wheelchairs, nurses and doctors, take a ticket or see the waiting room—the world begins to slow and speed up at the same time. I can see a fly from 10 metres away, I can hear someone’s conversation three rooms away. I note all exits, touch nothing. The fluorescent lights begin to rain down on me. I get dizzy—like death is near. And my brain thinks it’s my death…from a blood test.

My body flushes with heat—fear, anxiety. I know blood tests don’t hurt and nothing has ever gone even remotely wrong while getting a blood test. Even though this was my 50th (give or take) time getting one, I still…can’t… not cry.

So we head to reception and she gives me (and Eden) a patient wristband and tells us where to go. We walk through the different areas of the hospital and my impending doom begins to form into actual doom as we get closer and closer to phlebotomy. No tears yet. I get my number and sit with the other 15 people ready to get their blood taken too—young and old.

My number is called and it’s my turn. My phlebotomist is a young man with earbuds in. I get an extra ping of anxiety. Is it better than he’s young? Steady hands? Newer knowledge? Or bad that’s he’s maybe listening to a podcast and not listening if something goes wrong? I sit down in the plastic chair and pass him my sheet so he knows how much blood to take. He asks me to check my name. It’s right—not that I even looked.

I tell him I’m scared and that I would like the baby needle because I bruise easily. I know it takes longer, but i don’t care. He agreed and we chose the arm with the biggest veins visible—a trick I have learnt for minimal bruising to occur—because if I see a bruise over the days following the blood test, it will take me right back to that phlebotomy room. Yes… I know that’s not normal.

So I look away from the phlebotomist and let him do his thing and I know what’s coming. The tears. I feel my body heat up as the flush rises from my toes up to my head. As soon as the phlebotomist places that antiseptic wipe on my skin I begin to ball my eyes out… albeit quietly, but my entire face is wet within seconds. There’s a few older ladies in the room which weirdly make me feel better—getting a blood test in front of others waiting, especially women, like they are my mothers for that moment. They give me soft smiles and nods to let me know it’s okay… And within like 30 seconds it’s done and the bandaid is on. It’s over and I’m off to get some form of sweet treat to curb my dizziness.

Anyway, enough about me and my undiagnosed, unreasonable and unexplainable medical trauma. Why do I put myself through this? I quite literally didn’t even need to. I’m healthy and feel 100%. I’ll tell you why… Because I am brave.

Penelope, you literally cried the whole time.

Yeah but crying isn’t lacking bravery. Crying is just fear. And fear and bravery can coexist—In fact, they must co-exist, because you can’t be brave without fear. Bravery without fear is just not being scared.

Bravery is not the absence of fear. It’s being scared and doing it anyway. I’m scared of a lot of things—I was scared to quit my stable, well-paid senior role in corporate. I was scared to start a business with 10k savings between me and my business partner. I was scared to move across the world and start a new life in Bangkok.

I’m scared all the fkn time—to get on a motorbike, to get on planes, to tell someone how I feel.

But I do it and get through it (most of the time). I’m not Irena Sendler brave, who rescued around 2,500 Jewish children. Or David who chose to fight Goliath from the bible brave.

But on a smaller level, I am brave. And just like David chose to fight and not run away from Goliath, your choice to be brave is the same—a choice between yes, I’ll face this fear and come out the other side better or no I’ll just be scared and do nothing and wonder “what if?”

Bravery is just a choice like choosing between chicken or fish.

You’ll always be scared in this life. Of small things like riding the rollercoaster or getting a blood test. Or big things like getting an operation or moving across the world to a country where you don’t speak the language.

The choice is yours whether you decide to be scared and say no or to be scared and say yes.

Make fear your companion. It’s not something you should run from. Welcome fear because without it, you can never be brave.

Love,
Penelope
Writer, Brave