Heartbreak and Needles
I don’t think anyone likes needles. Having blood drawn or bleeding tends to put people off. Years ago, I was afraid of needles. I dreaded having blood-work done. My cholesterol felt fine to me. My blood pressure and heart rate would go up if I went in for something as routine as a flu shot. The thought of giving blood made me queasy. I gave blood once but they didn’t let me go right away. They made me lay down, drink orange juice and eat cookies for twenty minutes until the color returned to my face (I rather liked the cookies). I couldn’t look at someone if they had an IV in their arm. I would get a little queasy the moment I felt the alcohol wipe on my skin. I didn’t like needles.
Then, I got sick.
I had sharp abdominal pains for over a year. I was regularly getting sick. Walking became difficult. I endured blood tests, CT scans, MRI’s, and few colonoscopies. Eventually, the diagnosis was diverticulitis (a colon disease) with an added bonus of a fistula (an abnormal connection) between the colon and the bladder. One day, I ended up in the emergency room, literally peeing shit. The treatment was surgery.
I tried to negotiate with my doctors. Perhaps if I ate nothing but tofu and carrots for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t need surgery.
“You need surgery”, they said.
“Maybe you could do surgery without needles or scalpels”, I asked. I was in so much pain I couldn’t stand up, but I was more afraid of the surgery than the pain.
Oh yeah, that’s a good idea! Whey didn’t we think of that? Oh, that’s it! because you’re a fucking idiot! Yes, that’s it. You have two choices. Surgery or death from the infection that you will eventually get because antibiotics can’t hold it off forever. Sooner or later, the infection will travel from your
How do those needles sound now?
I knew surgery involved lots of needles, scalpels, and things called trocars. Okay, I didn’t even know what a trocar was before the surgery, but I had a lot of recovery time to google.
Before the surgery, I needed IV antibiotics to clear up the infection, then more blood work to make sure I was healthy enough for the operation. Pokes, sticks and lots of little “this will just be a little pinch.”
In a nutshell, what I heard was, “needles, needles, needles, scalpel/, needles, morphine drip (I was ok with the last one).
I cringed. I cried. I hated it. I wanted it to stop. I didn’t like it. But, after a while, I adjusted to it. I learned that it wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be in my own head. I discovered that it really was just a pinch and that I could ignore the pain and even joke about it.
I have always been pretty good at making people laugh.
Some people are tall and good looking. I’m not one of those people.
Some people are naturally charismatic. Other people are inexplicably drawn to them. Sometimes these people end up being terrible dictators and committing genocide. This is not me either.
Some people can buy a drink for a woman at the opposite end of the bar and, for some reason, she responds by moving closer, talking to him, going home and fucking him later that night. Despite all my best efforts, this has never been me. I’ve run this experiment a few times.
Every woman I’ve ever been with. Everyone who has ever found me attractive. Every person who ever wanted to have sex with me and everyone who has ever fallen in love with me has one story in common; I made them laugh.
Laughter is my defense. Laughter is my secret weapon. Making someone laugh is what I do when I’m in pain. Physical pain, emotional pain, it doesn’t matter.
The one common thread among anyone who ever said that they loved me, regardless of the outcome, is that I made them laugh when they didn’t feel like it.
That is my super power. That is the one thing I know I can do. I can make people laugh when they are depressed. I can make someone laugh when they are the saddest they have ever been in their lives. I can make someone laugh when it is completely inappropriate. I can’t do it all the time. I can’t do it every time. But I can almost always do it when someone needs it the most.
I made my nurse laugh when he missed the vein and had to stick me a second time.
When my ex-wife and I were dating, I made her laugh about the time her previous boyfriend dumped her on her birthday.
I made an ex-girlfriend laugh as I was telling her that I had given her ex-husband a blow job and threw-up on him.
My marriage lasted for 23 years before I realized that it probably should have ended about ten years ago. We had dated for five years before getting married. It had been a long time since I was in a new relationship. I forgot how to do it.
After my marriage ended, and I shut down the business that I’d run for 18 years, I slid into depression and stayed there a while. During this time, I guess, I thought to myself, “Now would be a good time to jump into a relationship.” I must have said something like this because that is exactly what I did.
I fell in love with a woman who was in a similar situation. She was divorcing her husband of many years. We had known each other as casual friends for many years. We took comfort in each other and had our rebound relationship.
It was passionate. It was romantic. It was what we both needed at the time, and there was no way it could last. We had too much history together. We provided each other shelter from the storms in our lives, and we found a little peace together in our otherwise chaotic worlds.
Then one day, we broke up.
It wasn’t a surprise. We both knew it would happen. I was prepared for it, but fuck, it hurt.
I cried into my pillow. I drank whiskey, and I wrote sad stories and poems. I was shocked at just how much it hurt. We had only been going out for a few months, but I felt crushed.
Then, something strange happened. I started to feel better. I went on a few dating apps and tried meeting people again.
A short time later, I met another wonderful woman. She was a
The pain was familiar. There was crying and whiskey involved again, but just like the needles, it didn’t bother me as much anymore.
The pain was the same, but I knew what to expect by now. It’s kind of like riding a scary, new rollercoaster where you can’t see the whole track. The first time, you don’t know what is going to happen. It feels like you might just fall out and die.
After few rides, however, you start to memorize the track. You know where the dips are, you recognize the signposts, and you remember which way to lean to make the sharp curves easier to navigate.
Just like needles, I’ve learned that I can survive a breakup. It was a tough lesson, but I think I’m better off knowing that it isn’t the end of the world.
It isn’t fun, but it isn’t terrifying anymore, either. It’s just part of life and something that everyone goes through sooner or later.