Blood test

I sat at the health clinic for close to an hour. I felt sick, and sicker seeing all these ill people around me. Worse was this girl opposite me sneezing and coughing. I so wished I had a mask on...

Returning to a health clinic after a silent vow not to return to any institution related to health/sickness was overwhelming. I sat and waited and watched the number inch toward my turn to be seen. Twelve hours of fasting, and I was extremely thirsty...

I entered the examination room, and my body tenses up. The lady tried to make conversation to help me relax, but I couldn't. She took out the syringe out the plastic wrapping, and I turned away. She rolled up my sleeve. I closed my eyes. 

Ingest the prick, one that lasted for over a minute as she drew tube after tube of my blood. I dared not look at the red dye. I looked away. All the time, I thought about mum and all those times she went to the hospital all by herself to get her blood test done and to see the doctor. How difficult it must have been all alone. Today, I felt the difficult and heaviness of going in to have your health examined... 

Oh mum, what have you gone through by yourself all those years ago...

Oh dad, what did you have to face...? 

I so wished somewhere were next to me. Someone to keep me company because hospitals and health are such scary, scary things...

I walked out and was almost in tears. This heaviness descended over me, this tiredness and pain that weighed on my heart. I did not get to see a psychologist as I had planned to. I was shaking a bit as I dragged myself to the office. 

The blood test results will be out in a week or so.