Patience

I have become such a good patient. By this I mean that I am now pretty much unfazed by the experiences of going to the dentist, the gynecologist, the blood tester. I just sort of lie there passively during all the poking and prodding; it's literally not worth getting excited about. I cheerfully warn the woman drawing blood for a cholesterol test that I've gotten faint after the procedure before and come prepared with high calorie drinks to sip. I widen, rinse, spit, bite down and avoid wincing while the dentist does uncomfortable things to my mouth. At the ob-gyn's I'm equally well-behaved. And now it is not even merely that I do the right things while masking discomfort or nervousness. It's more like I dial in and out of apathy while there. Oddly, it makes the whole thing go so much better!

I'm posting because I'm wondering when and how this shift came about. It's not like I've been going to the doctor so much that I've gotten inured to it (though a bit of that does operate regarding dentists; growing up with the fingers and metal devices of three different orthodontists in one's mouth makes a person remarkably blase about dental mucking about). Maybe I'm just wired less tightly than I used to be. Or I've learned out to calm myself more effectively after all that yoga. Or I'm no longer impressed by professionals my age such that I get nervous around them. Anyway, it's a bit odd, if useful.

Comments

[Jill Smith]

It is easier, isn't it?

I've found similar calm during traffic jams. Good thing, too.

[Rana]

Yeah, traffic jams no longer bother me, not after one nightmare trip from northern LA during rush hour on a Friday. What should have been a two hour trip (one hour in LA, one hour after LA) became four hours of stop and go followed by an hour of relatively light traffic. Ugh.

[Another Damned Medievalist]

I'm pretty much that way, too. There are so many other things that really upset me in the world, that the little, everyday shit just doesn't faze me anymore. Could be one of the reasons I have low blood pressure, despite being addicted to dairy!

[Rana]

I have yet to maintain that zen calm when faced with a knotty computer problem or barking dogs, though. Some buttons seem made for pushing!

[cindy]

I think it is just about reaching that point in one's life--at whatever age it occurs--when you finally figure out what's worth getting upset about and what isn't, what you can change and what you can't.

[Claire]

Wish I could be like that!

[Michelle]

I don't think I'm there yet. The last time I went to the OB/GYN, I asked halfway through "are you done yet" to which he responded emphatically, "NO, I'm not. Are you ever going to change?"

[Rana]

Hee.

(It probably helps that my doctor is pretty quick -- no fiddling around unnecessarily.)

[profgrrrrl]

I am so jealous of your zenlike state at the dentist and with blood being drawn. Both are major-freakout events for me. The gyn, on the other hand, doesn't bother me one bit. And never has. I'm sort of disturbed that other invasiveness bothers me and that doesn't. Mostly it is anticipation of pain, I think. And having someone hang over your face doing dental work is pretty freaky.

[Rana]

Don't get me wrong -- I certainly don't enjoy the experience. (Either of them.) It's just that they no longer freak me out or make me anxious. In some ways it's a bit like when you're camping and have to hike up a long, hot, steep trail with a big pack on. You zone out and keep plodding along stolidly in animal-mind mode until the ordeal is over. Basically, I seem to have gotten better about moving into and out of that mental state at will than I used to be.

It may also be a side effect of having to calm myself repeatedly over the years when a panic attack manifests. I'm used to chanting to myself that it is all in my head, breathe, calm down, stolidly wait it out...