Metamorphosis From Phobia To Mania

           People have different kinds of phobias – arachnophobia (fear of spiders), acrophobia (fear of heights), claustrophobia (fear of closed spaces), and so on. I don’t know when it all started, but I was scared of going to hospitals right from childhood. The smell is nauseating, the needles are petrifying and the masked surgeons are intimidating. And it’s of late I came to know that it’s technically called nosocomephobia (fear of hospitals). So I try to avoid hospitals as much as possible by doing some self medication and fortunately I haven’t had any acute diseases or wounds or fractures so far. But the sore throat that has been nettling me for the past few days had no signs of mitigating despite all my self prescribed medications. In fact, tinges of chocolate colored blood started appearing in the mucous. That’s high time I realized it’s time to visit the long forgotten place - the hospital.

     

          Without wasting much time I reached the hospital, went to casualty, got appointed to an old doc. He took my pulse and blood pressure. The BP was an impressive 120/80 mmHg, the perfect figure for a resting, healthy adult. Then he asked me to go to the lab and take a blood test. It took about 1 hour for the result and I headed back to the doc. As I opened the door my eyes beamed, my jaws dropped, my spine chilled. In the place of the senile doc is, what do I say, an absolutely gorgeous devastatingly beautiful young lady doc. It was her shift of duty then, I suppose. “Thomas Sebastian”, she uttered while looking at my patient record. The way she called my name was in an absolutely sexy accent, stylizing every syllable in it. Told her the symptoms, did an initial checkup and then she took out the sphygmomanometer, held my hand and started taking my BP. 140/90 - that’s the figure.

Doc: Hmm, that’s weird; the record says 120/80, taken just a while ago.
(She then held my other hand and checked my BP again. 150/90- steady increase.)

Doc: Maybe you are having some anxiety now.

Me: Ya, I was kind of scared of the blood test, that’s why. (Oh come on doc, you know why, after all I’m a red blooded young lad)

She prescribed some medicines and asked me to come after 2 days if the symptoms still persist. The symptom will persist after 2 days, that I’m sure, guaranteed.

I came to realize from the vicissitudes of my BP that I’ve yet another phobia – venustraphobia, which is literally fear of beautiful women. Or is it? Maybe it’s venustramania. Or maybe I’ve a fetish for lady docs or maybe I’ve a fetish for women in white. Who knows? Anyways, looking forward for the next appointment. Nosocomephobia?? - No more!!

P.S. Blood in cough was due to some abrasions in throat, which was misunderstood by me, but it did lead me to a very special rendezvous.