Pain is Underrated

Art by Elliot Skow

Like you, I hate needles. Because this condition, if not genetic, is a rational response to a stick in the arm, my wife and I bribe our children when it’s time for their shots. But this stratagem has its limits: long-term thinking takes decades to mature, and anyway I don’t really like what Starbucks has to offer. One time it almost came to forcibly holding one of our kids down, or skipping a vaccination, both awful options. But I’ve never fainted or anything. I once told a phlebotomist that I had a problem with needles, and this triggered some rehearsed protocol, where I was offered a reclined position and a muffin. But none of that was going to make a difference. I couldn’t look while the blood was being drawn, but not looking was worse: a chance for my imagination to conjure unreal horrors.

In college I was on a medication that required regular blood tests. Over that time the human ability to learn made some adjustment in me. I also developed a technique: while on my right side the needle slid into my shoulder, on the left I would bite one of my fingers. By focusing on the pain I could control, I was distracted from the pain I could not. I’m well-trained now, I believe, to fool a lie detector test.