Happy Hypochondria – Extracted from Maeve’s Times

10197 Maeve Binchy
10197 Maeve Binchy

I am a very nervous person about my own health; when I get a headache I wonder if it is meningitis, when I have a twinge in my stomach I wonder has my liver finally packed it in. If I get the smallest cut I watch the tiny drops of blood in horror in case I have haemophilia and will bleed to death there and then.

For years and years I tried to disguise this terror, and put a big brave face on it. I would try desperately to be casual when they were taking blood pressure, searching in the face of whoever was wrapping the terrible bit of canvas around my arm for some sign that I was finished. 'I suppose that's nice and normal,' I would say in what I thought was a healthy, uncaring voice, but inside my heart would be thumping in great booms of terror and my eyes were wild for reassurance.

I used to read magazines in doctors' waiting rooms until the words became a red blur of misery in front of me. Everyone else looked so uncaring about their bodies as they sat there genuinely absorbed in some out-of-date colour supplement, while I'd be afraid to glance at the horoscopes in case Gemini was missing, or it would say that I should make the most of the short bit of time I had left.

If ever I got a spot I thought it was a harbinger of a skin disease that would peel back all the covering on me and expose veins and muscles. A piece of grit in my eye and I was wondering about Moshe Dayan and whether he left the patch on or took it off at night.

But all the time I hid this hypochondria from the world, because I thought grown-ups were meant to be brave and uncaring about themselves and their illnesses. The impassive faces around me in terrifying places like an outpatient ward, this must be the norm.

But now I've changed. Now I admit I'm terrified, and it's much, much better. You have to persuade people that you're not joking, because some of these hard-boiled medics actually think it's unlikely that you could be weeping with nerves inwardly. They think it's a fairly pleasant thing to come up against the medical profession and that we should be pleased rather than fearful.

I began to Come Out as a Bad Patient with the dentist. A gentle softspoken Englishman who had never as he said himself met my type of person before. I explained to him that I was probably more nervous of dentists than anything in the world except flying, and could he show me his hands to ensure that he had no hidden weapons on them. He did this and I relaxed a fraction.

We had a depressing discussion about my teeth and I managed to jump out from under his arms and nearly knocked both of us on the floor.

'Why did you do that?' he said sadly, putting on his glasses again. 'I thought you were going to pounce,' I said. 'I'm very nervous.'

He said he'd have to look at them.

'Could you look at them without instruments?' I asked.

He couldn't. He needed a mirror and a pickaxe. He promised me that he couldn't take out teeth suddenly with a mirror and a pickaxe so I'd be safe.

Since then life with this dentist has been easy. He explains everything, he shows me his hands and lets me examine the pockets in his white coat. He doesn't say 'Aha' any more because it terrifies me. He explains why it wouldn't be a good idea to have a card with me at all times saying 'I am a nervous person. In case of an accident, if I am unconscious, please remove all my teeth so that I won't ever have to worry about fillings and injections again.'

He says that is not the act of a nervous person, it's the act of an insane person and I mustn't do it.

Now that he knows I'm nervous and self-dramatising, the whole relationship is on an honest basis. It's the same with the doctor. I told him that I was possibly the most nervous person he would ever meet in his whole career.

'Nonsense,' he said, 'a nice big cheerful person like you, nervous. Ridiculous.'

I argued this with him logically. Indeed I was very nice and very big and cheerful but that didn't mean I couldn't be nervous as well. The things weren't mutually exclusive. Why should he accept that a small, horrible, depressed person was nervous and I wasn't? It floored him.

'You don't look nervous,' he came back with a bit weakly.

So I was very glad that I had told him. Now I remind him each time I see him that I'm nervous in case he's forgotten.

'I know,' he said the last time, shaking his head. 'I know you think you're nervous, I've written it in your file. I'm not to use long words. I'm not to say “Aha” and I'm not to assume that you're brave.'

Life would be a lot more comforting for everyone, doctors and patients alike, if people admitted that they were very frightened when they are. You don't get a sudden strength from pretending to be brave, you just get treated like a brave person, while if you admit humbly to being appallingly feeble about things the chances are you'll get someone to be kind and gentle to you when they would have been brisk otherwise.

There's strength in unity, and if all of us cowards come out openly and honestly they'll have to take us seriously. They can't laugh us all out of the waiting rooms and the hospital beds, can they?

© Maeve Binchy

Extracted from Maeve's Times, a collection of Maeve Binchy's writing from The Irish Times, by Maeve Binchy. Published by Hachette NZ, $37.99 RRP and available now where all good books are sold.