Chapter 27 Haemophobia, the theory.
(Sorry for the long period between the previous post and this one)
Martin reached out to the alarm clock and pushed the button to stop the alarm sound. He rolled back in bed and bent over to Louisa. He pushed aside her hair and whispered in her ear to softly waken her up.
Louisa opened her eyes, turned towards Martin and leant on her elbow, looking at his worried gaze.
Needs a little distraction, she thought, must be worried about the topic of the conference.
As they didn't have to take care of James, they had more than enough time for a morning cuddle. Louisa started to caress his chest and stomach, drawing small circles all over his body.
'Louisa.., it's time to get up, I..'.
'Shush Martin, relax and enjoy. You're tense and you need my special treatment, trust me. You asked me to be very close to you this day, remember? I start with that right now!'
Having said that, she kissed him in his neck and at the soft spot behind his ears, her hands raking through his short cropped hair. Her ministrations had their predictable and immediate effect. Martin held her in a tight, passionate embrace and Louisa assured that for a few moments he'd forget his worries about the haemophobia-day. Actually, they both forgot about everything around them for the time being…
It did help Martin to relax a bit for a while, but he wasn't able to eat much from the light but healthy breakfast that they had ordered from the room service.
'Martin, can you tell me… why are you so nervous about this day? I mean, you're always so brilliant at turning yourself into Doctor's mode and shut down your personal emotions. But not in this case, as it seems. But I'll be there for you you know, to give you the support you'll need'.
Martin swallowed hard and scraped his throat. 'Ehm, no, I'm not, nervous. I'm fine, I'm fine'.
'I'll be the judge of that!', Louisa thought. From the sessions she had had with Dr. Johnson, she'd learnt that it was sometimes wiser not to say everything, so she wisely held her tongue.
At about eight thirty, Martin and Louisa knocked on Morwenna's door, because Martin wished to see his son. Louisa was afraid that the little boy would cling to his parents and she foresaw a stressful moment, but Morwenna had everything well in hand. When Martin and Louisa were about to leave the room again, she distracted the boy adequately and they could leave without any problem.
'Very good choice… to have Morwenna here', Louisa said when they were waiting for the elevator. Martin replied with an affirmative nod and gently took his wife's arm.
When entering the conference room, one of the hostesses stopped Martin and said,
'Sir, you can't bring someone to the conference!'
Martin scowled and then answered. 'Oh yes I can! Louisa, follow me please'.
The young woman looked desperate 'Sir, wait a minute!' And when Martin continued to pace towards the entrance, 'Do you want me to call security?'
'Wat is hier allemaal aan de hand, what's happening here?'
Recognizing the voice of his new friend Martinus, Martin turned around and stood still. To his big surprise, Martinus wasn't alone either. A beautiful blonde woman stood at his side. It was crystal clear that he too, hadn't come alone to this special day of the conference.
The hostess moaned. During the last two days, she had noticed that there was a small group of doctors who apparently had bonded and become what she and the other hostesses called "the club of 8". All very intelligent Doctors one wouldn't want to get in trouble with. Most of them were incredibly grumpy, if not rude. This British Dr. Ellingham appeared to be the worst of all, the Dutch Dr. Elzenbosch, also known as dokter Tinus, earned a well-deserved second place.
'It simply isn't allowed to introduce someone to the conference', she tried.
'Oh but we don't! I have made a special subscription for my wife to join me today. Don't ask me why, that's none of your business. I presume that my friend Dr. Ellingham did exactly the same thing'.
'Of course I have, you just didn't ask! Bad habit, making assumptions!'
The two men, followed by a blond and a dark haired woman, finally entered the conference room and chose their seats.
'Lisa, Martin Ellingham, Martin, my wife Lisa', Martinus said to introduce them to each other. Martinus also introduced his wife to Louisa. 'Mrs. Ellingham, please meet my wife Lisa, head of Wourkem's primary school'.
Louisa and Lisa started a social chat and Louisa was delighted to hear that Martinus' partner also was head teacher. They seemed to get along quite well. Too soon, the conference started and much to their regret, they had to postpone further exchanges of experiences.
Louisa sat down next to Martin and tried to focus on the program, but she also tried to keep an eye on Martin.
The day started with a short explanation on this particular anxiety disorder. The presentation was made by a doctor who had done researches on all kinds of phobia.
'You probably all know what the word haemophobia means', he started, '..fear of blood'. Simply explained, Hemophobia or the extreme fear of blood, triggers a phobic reaction from the suffering individual at the smell or the sight of blood. Sometimes his or her own, but sometimes also the blood of other persons may elicit the reaction. Often, there is confusion between haemophobia and the fear of needles. A person may be afraid of having his blood drawn which can be mistaken for trypanophobia or the extreme fear of needles.'
The remark on trypanophobia, brought back Martin's memory of the day Morwenna needed to get a tetanus injection. She appeared to be "not so fond of needles" as she had put it herself. When Martin prepared the jab, the girl fainted just in front of him. When she woke up, the job was done of course.
'… In fact, this common specific phobia is actually categorized broadly as blood-injection-injury phobia, but it's not always related, individuals can suffer from severe haemophobia, but have no problems whatsoever with needles'.
Martin is a good example of that!, Louisa thought.
'First let us study the causes of Hemophobia. As stated above, there is, or can be a link between other phobias and the fear of blood phobia. The fear of needles phobia and haemophobia is one combination often seen in persons. Some patients are known to display a phobia of dentists and doctors along with Haemophobia. In general, the fear of blood phobia is triggered by a fear of the field of medicine as it is often related to blood, injections, injury, pain and death.'
Nonsense!, Martin thought. Wat een onzin*) Martinus said to himself. Both men grunted at the same time. They looked at each other understandingly. 'So I was right, he also suffers from haemophobia', Martin concluded.
'TV and movie images can also contribute to this fear. Halloween culture, gory bloody movies, serial killer murder stories etcetera have also been known to cause this phobia'.
TV programs and movies are rubbish most of the time, but I'm not afraid of tomato sauce shown on a flat screen!. But Martin had to be honest with himself, the sight of Bert, seemingly bleeding to death, had caused him nausea and palpitations, even if the blood only appeared to be the content of a bottle of Heinz tomato Ketchup.
'Bleeding is a sign that there is something wrong with the body. Hence, hypochondriasis and nosophobia are also linked to Hemophobia. Hypochondriasis and Nosophobia, are both characterized by a fear of falling sick or developing specific diseases like cancer, diabetes etcetera. Think of medical student's disease, a form of nosophobia. When learning about a certain illness or disease, students sometimes think they suffer from it, because they think they have the symptoms. Same situation could occur also outside the medical environment, because more and more people start looking on the Internet when they feel sick and then make the wrong conclusions.
Apart from that, I have seen cases of mysophobia, the fear of germs that also triggered haemophobia. In those cases, the patient was afraid of catching germs from someone else's blood and developed a fear for blood itself. Persons that are afraid of death, thanatophobics, are another category of patients that may develop haemophobia. The idea of bleeding to death makes them afraid of blood.'
Neither of those causes seems to be the reason why Martin suffers from Haemophobia, Louisa reasoned.
The doctor who presented the subject took a sip from a glass of water and continued.
'The most common reason to develop this extreme phobia, is however a prior negative or traumatic childhood experience with blood'.
After the coffee break, the doctor presented some statistics on the percentage of people on earth suffering from haemophobia. They were asked to analyse and discuss in small groups the presented figures. Martin and Martinus were really interested in the statistics of persons with haemophobia in combination with other anxiety disorders. Also the graphs showing the percentage of haemophobics per profession interested them a lot.
The number of doctors suffering from this phobia appeared to be insignificant. 'I'm not surprised to see that' Louisa remarked, 'Doctors most likely wouldn't specify their profession in this context. Must be pretty embarrassing to admit suffering from blood phobia when you are a doctor, so probably there are a few of them in the category "undefined"'. Both men grunted, but Lisa agreed with her.
About an hour or so before continued on the symptoms of Haemophobia. Louisa glanced at Martin to see if the subject of today's seminar didn't cause him any trouble, but so far, Martin looked quite interested and definitely was in Doctor's mode. She wondered if he was even still aware of her presence. Gawd, I do hope this day will help him, she hoped. She found the presentation very interesting and she was happy that the doctor who presented it, explained everything in understandable language.
'Haemophobia does have similar symptoms with other phobias, like anxiety, nausea, increased heart rate, sweating, trembling or shaking at the sight of blood. But, these symptoms are followed by a sudden drop in blood pressure and heart rate that leads the individual to faint, become pale or weak, which are not seen in other phobia reactions.
As you all know, this is a called vasovagal response in medical terms. The vagus nerve, a component of the parasympathetic nervous system, meanders from the brain stem through the neck, chest and abdomen. It helps to control involuntary "rest and digest" functions, such as lowering heart rate and promoting the secretion of gastric juices. But when it overreacts — in response to hunger for instance, or dehydration, standing up quickly, standing too long, intense laughter, sudden fright, severe coughing, pain, vomiting or, of course in our case the sight of blood — it causes such a vasovagal response'
'I've difficulties following that', Lisa Elzenbosch remarked in a low voice.
'Fainting, or feeling very week occurs because the brain does not receive adequate blood supply', Martinus explained to his wife.
'It can be embarrassing to faint or to have a panic attack to the haemophobic individual who then tries to avoid seeing blood at all costs. The phobia can get that serious that it interferes with his or her daily life. The sufferer might refuse to visit a doctor or dentist or even see printed pictures of movies involving blood. I've seen cases where patients lead a sedentary lifestyle in order to avoid sports related injuries. Should a doctor develop haemophobia, the consequences would of course be disastrous!'
Both Louisa and Lisa held their breath and looked up at their husbands. Both doctors were pale, but neither of them showed any emotion whatsoever.
'After the lunch break, we'll look deeper in the problematic of dealing with blood phobia, for now : enjoy your meal!'
To be continued
I am not a doctor, nor have I any experience with medical issues. Don't blame me for any medical incorrectness or incorrect conclusion I might have distilled from the information I found on Internet on the subject of haemophobia. Anyway, the story is the fruit of my imagination, so please enjoy it as such.
*) Wat een onzin = Nonsense