EpiPens

I’m not proud of it, but up until a few years ago I suffered from trypanophobia. It could have started from watching my Nana run a line of stitches up her hand while she was running her treadle sewing machine. I can remember hearing her scream as she attempted to pull her hand free. It was, by the way, the same hand that she regularly got caught in the washing machine wringer. Being a Nana was obviously a dangerous business.

The fear of needles is a real thing. I could never get my mind to accept that it was okay to jab a sharp pointy thing into my skin. In elementary school, I dreaded the thought of going to school on Shot Day. The classes would let out one at a time and line up in the hall in front of the school nurse’s office for our polio, tetanus, measles, mumps, and rubella shots.

I had seen a photo once of WW2 servicemen in the Pacific standing in a single file line completely naked except for their boots. When they got to the front of the line, nurses would give them shots on each butt cheek. I was terrified of the embarrassment of standing in line in the school hallway in only my socks.

There was tension in the air as one at a time, a child would enter the nurse’s office. Within seconds, sounds of screaming and crying would fill the building.

“Marty,” the principal said in a calm voice as he crouched next to me, “could you please stop the screaming and crying before you’ve actually entered the nurse’s office. It’s upsetting the rest of the children.”

I never overcame my fear of needles through the school years. At one point in elementary school, I got a staph infection in my left middle finger from a cut which was not properly cleaned. The skin ballooned like a boil and on a call to my pediatrician we were told that it had to be lanced. My mom, my dad, and my Nana tried to coax me out of the apple tree, but there was no way I was going to stick a needle in my finger to drain the infection. As a result, a few weeks later I ended up in the hospital. The surgeon told my parents that if they couldn’t clean up the infection, they would have to remove the finger. I still have all ten, but my left middle finger has a nice Frankenstein scar running the full length.

Even in college when I took a Biology class, one of our lab exercises required us to prick our finger and get a blood sample so we could find our blood types. I stood, needle in hand, aiming at my fingertip for one hour. The rest of my classmates stabbed themselves, tested their blood, and left the lab. Finally, the professor, having compassion and wanting to go to lunch said, “Let’s call it a day, Mr. Mitchell. I can see that you are not planning on pricking your finger.”

The first, do or die, moment with needles came when I was going through the hiring process for the job I had for 34 years. Going in for the physical, the nurse said, “Please lie on the table, I need to draw blood.”

“Do you have to?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “We can end the physical and the interview process right now. It’s your choice.”

“Okay,” I quickly responded. “By chance, has anyone else screamed like a little girl before?”

And then came the bee incident. I was going to unlock the shed door one hot summer day. The paper wasps and yellow jackets were making nests all under the eaves. Although I knew they were there, they hadn’t bothered me before. This day though, as I reached up under the eave to grab a key hanging from a nail, a yellow jacket swooped down and stung me on the neck.

“Yow!” I swatted it off me and immediately the sting area began to get red and burn.

At first, I was just angry from getting sucker punched by the yellow jacket. Shortly thereafter, I noticed that my arms wouldn’t go down to my sides. I was having a reaction; my armpits were swelling up. Standing in front of the mirror, I marveled at how impressive I looked.

“Look at me,” I yelled to Cheryl. “I’m muscle bound. Tell me the truth, do I resemble the Incredible Hulk?”

“Oh yeah, you’re incredible all right,” she said with sarcasm.

I never liked snarky women.

Gradually, the swelling went down. Two months later, I had a company physical. While talking with the doctor, I mentioned the armpit swelling incident and she reacted.

“You obviously had an allergic reaction to bee stings. The thing about bee stings is that the venom stays in your body and each sting gets a little worse. This time it caused your armpits to swell. The next time it could cause your tongue to swell and block your airway or you could go into anaphylactic shock. I would recommend that you buy an EpiPen and have it close by during bee/yellow jacket season.

She gave me a prescription and I went to the local drug store to pick one up. With insurance, it cost me $120.00. Without insurance, the pen would have cost $500.00.

Back at home I tore into the packaging to read how the pen works.

“Hold the pen near the outer thigh. Swing and firmly push the orange tip against the outer thigh at a 90-degree angle, perpendicular to the leg. Hold the tip against the thigh for 10 seconds so the epinephrine can drain from the pen through the needle.”

“Needle? No one said anything about needles! This is supposed to be a pen.”

I shoved the pens into the bathroom drawer and went on with life, occasionally putting them in my suitcase during trips to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Hawaii. And all was fine until this last summer.

We have a 9’×18′ above ground pool and on one very warm, sunny day, I went to the pool dressed only in my swimsuit to remove the cover. Unbeknownst to me, the yellow jackets were building nests under the piping of the pool and as I pulled the cover off, they swarmed and stung me five times.

Cheryl, who was sitting at the kitchen table looked up to see me run past the window, arms flailing in the air above my head.

Although it looked exactly like the way I dance to Gimme Dat Ding, she yelled out to me, “What are you doing?”

“I got stung five times,” I yelled back.

“I’m getting the EpiPen!” she yelled, heading for the upstairs bathroom.

Remembering the needle, I yelled back, “I’m fine!”

Nevertheless, she came down from upstairs with a pen in hand.

Once outside she was determined to come to my rescue.  She had shoes on, and I was barefoot in a swimsuit.

“Come here!” she screamed.

“I’m not having any reaction. My armpits aren’t swelling.”

“Your tongue will swell up and you won’t be able to breathe, you pain in the rear. Stop running.”

I was more worried about the pain in the rear I would have if I did stop running. Looking over my shoulder, I was impressed by her speed and determination. Alas, I was greatly hindered by my bare feet on the gravel driveway. As I stepped back onto the lawn by the mailbox she dove and tied up both my legs, driving me to the ground, the EpiPen cocked high over her head.

“It’s for your own good,” she yelled as she plunged the pen into my thigh.

The piercing scream nearly covered up her ability to count to 10.

A car slowed. Leo from across the street stood up and stared out his living room window.

Cheryl was lying across my feet holding the pen perfectly perpendicular against my right thigh.

The fast-pounding heartbeat, nervousness, sweating, nausea, vomiting, trouble breathing, headache, dizziness, anxiety, shakiness, and pale skin made the shot so worthwhile.

Had it not been for the gravel driveway, had it not been, I could have outrun her on the street . . . regardless of how odd it looked.

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