Sally Breslin: My Life: I'M TRYING TO CONQUER MY FEAR OF DOCTORS...BUT APPARENTLY NOT HARD ENOUGH!

I hate to admit it, but I suffer from iatrophobia – an irrational fear of doctors.

When people ask me why, my standard reply is, “Name me one other person who can give you worse news than a doctor can.”

The response usually is a blank stare.

(Actually, I think a court judge might deliver worse news, but I don't plan to ever have to face one).

With every visit to a doctor, I’ve walked into the examining room thinking, “This is it…the beginning of the end. I just know I’m going to be told I have something incurable.”

It didn’t matter why I was going for the visit. If I had an infected hangnail, I’d think my finger was going to have to be amputated…all the way up to my armpit.

I certainly didn’t take after my mother, who was my polar opposite when it came to doctors. To her, every ailment was caused by gas, and could be cured with either a good burp or a fart. She would shrug off the most intense pain and say, “Oh, all I need is a few burps and I’ll be fine,” while I would be thinking, “Emergency appendectomy followed by deadly peritonitis!”

I’ll never forget when I was about 21 and began to have discomfort and tightness in my chest. Fearing the worst, I made an appointment with my family doctor. As I drove to his office, I passed by Epsom Monument Company and I remember thinking I probably should stop and pick out a headstone because I was certain I was going to be diagnosed with some life-threatening heart ailment. I’d even canceled plans to attend my friend’s upcoming barbecue the next weekend because I was positive I’d be undergoing open-heart surgery at that time.

I’m sure I must have sounded like some hysterical drama-queen when I described my symptoms to my doctor. He sat patiently listening to my concerns and then calmly asked me several questions. He listened to my heart, took an EKG and performed a thorough physical exam, including blood work.

As I sat facing him at his desk, waiting for the results, I actually thought I might pass out, I was so nervous. “So, Doc,” I finally gathered the courage to ask, “What’s the diagnosis?”

He leaned forward, his expression serious, and said, “Tell me, do you feel the tightness in your chest when you’re in bed at night?”

I had to think about it for a second. “No, I guess not.”

“I noticed some marks on your upper body when I was examining you,” he said.

I felt my heartbeat quicken as I wondered what kind of marks he’d found. Maybe evidence of blood clots or poor circulation from my heart not beating right?

“Marks?” I barely was able to squeak at that point.

He nodded. “And after checking all of your test results, my diagnosis is…”

I held my breath as I mentally measured myself for a coffin.

“Your bra is too tight.”

My eyes grew wide and my mouth fell open. “What?”

“You need a bigger bra. The tightness in your chest and the pain are being caused by your bra. There are marks on your body showing where it’s digging into you. I’ll bet you wear the underwire styles.”

Actually, I did wear the underwire bras, which felt like torture devices, but I wanted sturdy support.

“The reason why you don’t have the pain when you’re in bed is because I assume you don’t wear your bra then,” he said. “So the only prescription I’m going to give you today is to go shopping for a larger size!” At that point, he finally smiled at me, clearly amused.

That ranked right up there with one of the most embarrassing moments of my life (and I’ve had plenty of them).

Flash forward to three weeks ago when I noticed a cluster of bumps in the shape of a circle on the bridge of my nose. I immediately rushed to the computer to look up what they might be.

Well, anyone who’s ever looked up an ailment on the Internet knows it’s never a wise thing to do because you’ll end up thinking you have about five hours to live. By the time I was through researching my nose bumps, I was all but convinced I was going to end up noseless. I also noticed there was this one photo of a woman who had a lesion on her nose that was said to be psoriasis. But that very same photo of the woman also turned up for other skin conditions like keratosis, eczema and skin cancer. Obviously, she had an all-purpose lesion. So I ended up even more confused than when I’d begun.

Three weeks passed and my bumps didn’t go away, so this past Friday, I finally gathered the courage to call a dermatologist. The last time I’d called one, they’d said they could squeeze me in on September 1st…and I was calling in June. So I figured by the time I actually would be able to see a dermatologist this time, the bumps either would be gone…or my nose would.

But to my surprise, I was told I could come in on Monday. I also was told I could have an entire skin-check done at that time, not just my nose, as part of my health screening.

So from Friday until Monday, which is today, I was a total, over-the-top nervous wreck, imagining every terrible diagnosis on earth, including the bubonic plague. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t even concentrate on my standard Saturday-night Hallmark romance movie. Every time the hunky guy stared into the woman’s eyes and they showed a close-up, I found myself staring at her nose to see if she had any bumps on hers.

And my friends’ suggestions that my problem might be caused from something as simple as an irritation from wearing a face mask, or a reaction to the new glycolic-acid anti-wrinkle face cream I’d recently been trying, didn’t console me either. Old “Doom and Gloom Breslin” had returned in her typical full-panic mode.

Yesterday, which was Sunday, I spent all day preparing for today’s doctor’s visit. I did things I haven’t done since the pandemic began. I manicured my nails. I colored and curled my hair. I shaved in places that hadn’t seen a razor in months. I gathered all of my medical history together, including photos of past rashes and skin problems. I went to bed early so I would be able to get up early and look refreshed for my appointment.

Well, when I awoke this morning, after sleeping for a grand total of probably an hour, I frightened myself when I looked in the mirror. And just thinking about my doctor’s visit caused me to do deep-breathing exercises to ward off an impending anxiety attack.

Just as I was trying to choke down some breakfast, the phone rang. It was the doctor’s office, telling me my appointment would have to be rescheduled until next Monday because the doctor wasn’t going to be in today.

Here we go again…

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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines for most of her adult life. She is the author of “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor” and “Inside the Blue Cube.” Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.