Needle phobia, vaccination and unsympathetic family

[Notimmaturejustscared]

Please help me. I am extremely needle-phobic and, as you might expect, am finding the current vaccination programme very challenging. I am determined to have the vaccine. My phobia has, in the past, stopped me from doing all sorts of things – travelling and even seeking medical treatment at times. I spent most of 2020 in a state of constant anxiety knowing that having an injection would be my only way out of the pandemic and trying to find legitimate ways of avoiding the needle. I’ve eventually come to the conclusion though that regaining freedom is the line I thought I’d never find – for the first time in my life, I want to be vaccinated, even if the actual process still scares me to death.

I wish I wasn’t like this. I wish I could turn off that bit of my brain which goes into fight or flight mode and unfortunately with me it is always one of those. I have run hysterically from a GP Office, blindly shoving people out of the way and not even aware of what I was doing until I was “safely” outside. If not taking flight, I struggle and scream. I sometimes vomit. I wish I could be a demure fainter. I know it’s irrational but I also know I can’t control it. I had CBT a few years ago which was focused on dental treatment but included injections in general. I can now, with a lot of support and a practice specialising in phobia, cope with dental treatment but the CBT didn’t touch my more general needle phobia. The programme was supposed to culminate with me giving blood but I got into such a state upon entering the building, hyperventilating and struggling to get away that I was told “we don’t need your blood that much, the risk to your own health is too great”. I’m been revisiting all my CBT learning though for the last few months, trying to change my thinking so that I can cope with this vaccination. I’m going with faking it until I make it and have just about convinced myself that I am really looking forward to the vaccination, talking about how much I want it, forcing myself to desensitise by looking at images and watching tv coverage that I would normally switch over. I have rehearsed a short spiel to give as soon as I enter the centre, explaining that I’m very nervous and likely to cry and panic. I was almost there until…

My sister has started volunteering at the local vaccination centre. My sister is one of those no-nonsense types and has been telling me with disapproval and mocking attitude about grown men and women who come in all nervous about this tiny needle. She doesn’t know the extent of my phobia. She remembers how I was in childhood and how badly I reacted to injections at school but assumes I’ve grown up and gotten over all of that nonsense. She’s loved all things medical for as long as I can remember and has some real gallows-type humour about medical procedures as well as a bit of a gladiatorial attitude about how much she can undergo without making a fuss. Her DD was very ill in childhood (thankfully ok now) and this has given her an attitude of “I can’t believe a grown adult would make such a fuss when my DD had to go through much worse procedures with barely a whimper”. Having come so close to feeling I can go through with this, I’m now beside myself with fear about my sister seeing me in this kind of state. It’s not just DSis though, my parents also used to compare my fear to her stoicism and made clear they hated my weakness. I’ve not had any reason to discuss injections with my parents in over 25 years but they did recently ask if I was going to get the vaccine or if I was still “stupid about these things”. I acted really breezy, saying that childhood was a long time ago and of course I would get it. Of course if my sister sees me freaking out, she’ll tell our parents and my family will mock me/be disappointed forever more.

We’re in Scotland so my understanding is that the vaccination appointment is basically a summons, rather than elsewhere in the UK where it is an invitation to book a slot. If that were the case I could book on the days I know she doesn’t volunteer (she does 5 days) but as it is, I won’t have a choice. Recently she was laughing about how a friend of hers came in so she told the vaccinator to “stab this one hard” and how she’ll say similar if she is working when I come in. This is hilarious to her but it has put me in a state of blind panic. I actually threw up after that phone call. Aside from DSis seeing me in my phobic state and possibly adding to it, I’m also concerned about any medical confidentiality. I know that she sometimes does the checking-in side of things and sometimes does queue control and I’m worried about what the checking-in involves. If she is checking me in will she see my medical records at any point? There’s stuff I really don’t want her to know in there. I’m also on some mediation at the moment which I don’t want her to know about – would I have to divulge this?

Please can someone talk me down and help me find some coping tips.

@listsandbudgets

Have you told the dentist that you 'don't like ' visits ? I always make absolutely clear that I am scared. I found a dentist who said that the assistant would keep an eye on my right hand. If I tapped , they would stop immediately.

It made such a difference to me. I now concentrate on my breathing out, breathing in happens in its own. If I forget to exhale I get very tense and everything hurts more.

Never had to use it and hardly even worry about a dentist visit these days. After many summers wasted being afraid that I hard a series of dentist appointments.

Wow, well done, OP

Hi OP, I've been following your story over the last few weeks after googling 'needle phobia covid vaccine' and coming across your post by chance. I've created an account just to say how inspirational you are!

I'm incredibly similar to you with my needle phobia and booked my vaccine for this Thursday morning in a moment of madness - I only managed to do that because I told myself I didn't have to turn up for it. Right now I'm pretty sure I'll drive to the centre to suss it out but I can't say what'll happen after that, only that I really hope I find the strength to go through with it.

I've not even told my husband I've booked it as I'll be too ashamed to tell him if I can't go through with it. He just doesn't understand.

I've avoided injections and blood tests at all costs throughout my life (even during pregnancy, not something I'm proud of but it shows the extent of it) so this is literally a nightmare come true for me.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks - knowing someone else like me can do it really gives me hope I can too. Also thanks for all the description of the process, it definitely helps to have a picture in mind. I just hope the staff I deal with are as lovely as the ones you came across!

I'm glad to read you overcame your fears and I trust you thanked your DH for his support.

@QueenOfDuisburg I really want to respond to your message and not read and run. Don't want folk to think I've taken all the support from this thread and now fucking off with my boots on and not giving anything back. I'm dealing with a really demanding job and undertaking a professional qualification, for which I have to finalise an assignment this week. I'll have some time tomorrow to come back properly though.

I'm also thinking that I'll let this thread run/keep resurrecting it as #2 draws closer.

fucking off with my boots on

Assuming we're not having a heatwave in a couple of months, you should definitely wear these boots for your second one!

I think I might change my username to Fuckingoffwithmybootson.

The boots arrived today and they are gorgeous – the website doesn’t really do them justice – the leather is so soft and they are the most luxurious thing I own. I’m definitely wearing them to appointment #2, whatever the weather – I need them as a reminder that I can get through it.

Dentistry is being mentioned a lot in recent posts and my phobia extends to this too – mainly due to needles but I also have a massive fear of extractions. I went 14 years without ever seeing a dentist due to my fear but eventually found an amazing practice which specialises in phobic patients. I’d be happy to share details in PMs just in case it turns out that anyone here is in a nearby area. The website Dental Fear Central is also really good – full of helpful moderators, tips and success stories. It’s a really supportive place which doesn’t feed the fear and that’s a difficult line to walk. I had identified this particular dental practice and used to drive up and weekends and days off just to scope it out. Then I worked up the courage to email them but still couldn’t bring myself to make an appointment. They were so patient and we had an email relationship for about six months before I was ready to take that step. Early appointment were difficult. I ran away, crying, from the waiting room once and most of the time would hyperventilate as soon as I saw the chair but they took things really slowly and now, more than ten years on I genuinely consider my dental surgery to be one of my safe spaces – even to the extent that when I was freaking out in the vaccination centre and then doing deep breathing exercises, I was actually imagining myself in the dentist’s chair because I know that that’s where people take care of me and are gentle and understanding. A while back, there were some reports that dental practices might offer the covid vaccine and I was actually really happy about this, knowing that my dentist was literally the only person on earth whom I’m trust to inject me. I really hoped this would happen but they obviously went down the mass centre route instead, which is understandable but doesn’t work so well for me.

I had been attending dental appointments and building up confidence for some time before I had to face my first properly invasive treatment and I immediately went to pieces and lost all confidence I had. It was my dentist who suggested getting additional help and even helped me rehearse what to say to my GP to ensure that this was taken seriously. I ended up in a CBT programme and it was useful to get me over the immediate hurdle of my forthcoming treatment but as I mentioned upthread, did not touch my more general needle phobia at all. My therapist was really lovely but when I couldn’t move on from certain stages (e.g. we agreed that I’d look at a picture of a needle but when it came to it, I kept my eyes closed, panicked, cried and tried to leave the room) she kept saying that it was up to me to put the work in and move myself forward and it was in my gift to learn how to control these responses. I absolutely understand the theory around this but I found it so demoralising because the reality to me was that this didn’t seem to be in my gift at all so I was feeling more defective than ever. We were supposed to end the programme with me giving blood but after crying, paralysed with fear for 45 minutes outside the donor centre and then fighting to get away once I did get inside, one of the staff said that they thought it would be dangerous for them and me to proceed. It was a hollow victory – just made me feel that I’ll never be able to deal with this phobia.

I know that one of the main reasons the dental stuff has clicked for me is the continuity and familiarity of care and I know that they go to enormous lengths to make the experience comfortable for me and even when some slightly nasty stuff has had to happen, I can cope with it because I know that they are trying so hard not to hurt me and to minimise all sounds and sensations around me. The difference with medical stuff and injections in general is the lack of continuity – if I have to face an injection or blood test, the person will be a stranger to me and although I’ve had some amazing experiences with wonderful, caring and sympathetic NHS staff, I’ve also met some brusque horrors who seem to enjoy torturing patients. A few years ago, I developed a dental abscess which really took hold on a Friday evening. I was in an extraordinary amount of pain yet I held on to see my normal dentist on the Monday rather than go to the emergency dental hospital at the weekend. That is the extent of my fear – not even being out of my face in agony could have persuaded me to submit to treatment from a stranger. This “how to cope with emergencies” is something I’m still exploring with my dentist but to me, every medical situation is treated like an emergency and that’s the problem. It’s obviously not the way medicine works (and obviously I understand this), even if I had a good relationship with my GP, I can’t just go there for all treatment. Even within the GP practice though, the staff – locums and nurses seem to change all the time. The hope that I can see the same nurse vaccinator for my second appointment is the one thing giving me the most confidence for dealing with that. I’m already starting to panic though that this won’t work out and I’ll fall apart if faced with a new person/environment.

On that note, I’ll admit that the panic is already starting to set in. Despite what I was told on Sunday, several people have told me that their second appointment was not the same day of the week as the first. I had been calm about this and had planned to call the Centre when I got my letter to ask if there would be any option to move to a Sunday appointment, explain the situation and give the vaccinator’s name and the importance – endorsed by her – of seeing her again. Last night though, I read a report on the Scottish Government’s attempt at vaccine passport evidence and it seems that it doesn’t work for people who did not receive a blue letter (i.e. NHS staff who got it through work) or who changed the date without getting a new letter. I’m now getting myself really worked up that I’ll go through this but won’t have the evidence and might therefore have to be re-vaccinated. Also, DSis said on Sunday that if the second is not done within the 12 week period, the effects will be invalidated and a third will be needed – so now I’m worried that I’ll be given a date right on the 12-week boundary but to change it to a time when the lovely nurse is available will take me beyond.

QueenofDuisburg I feel so touched that this thread has inspired you, despite my constant backtracking back into panic mode. I absolutely understand why you can’t tell your husband. I was hoping against hope that DH and I would get different slots and wish we had the English system so I could have engineered it that way, because I really didn’t want to do this in front of him, nor have the shame of possibly backing out. I really don’t want to go down the “if I can do it anyone can” route because I know from experience that this isn’t helpful but I do want to say that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for support at the Centre and that with the right level of support, I do believe it is achievable. The numerous posts here which said that it’s in everyone’s best interests for the staff to be helpful and supportive, really helped me. I’m sure you will find lovely people at your Centre. Like you, I have avoided needles my entire life – unlike you, this meant I avoided pregnancy. There’s a bit more to it than that – I was always ambivalent about having children and needle-phobia was just one factor in the decision not to go down that route, but it was there and that is something I find really shameful in myself. I’ve also avoided needles in ways I’m not proud of. Was once in an accident and got so worked up in a&e when they tried to give me a tetanus booster that they refused to do it and told me to get it done at my GP surgery within 48 hours. I had no intention of ever submitting to that – but I lied to DH and told him I had. I know I can’t continue through life like this, especially as I get older and really want to give myself good experiences with these vaccines so that I can build on this to get to a point where I might still panic but at least I won’t actively avoid medical treatment. I realise your appoint is/was this morning – please do let me know how you got on and it’s absolutely fine if you backed out and decided to take the time to get into a more resilient state on another day.

nancywhitehead You've just articulated very well what I feel about CBT but haven't really been able to put into words. I do think it's a brilliant tool in certain circumstances but I don't think it works for me and for this phobia for the reasons you have outlined. I am considering making a GP appointment to see about getting more help, using the covid vaccine as a building block but I don't want to be fobbed off with CBT and it will be useful to try to explain why not. Or maybe this just isn't something that can be offered on the NHS and I should have saved my boot money towards private therapy?

DD had a remote therapist we spoke to once a month due to covid but she and I worked on it in between at least three times a week.
She did the looking at pictures. But in tiny steps, so first the pictures were there but she couldn't look at them, then glancing at them for a few seconds, then a few minutes, then the same with videos, then we bought real needles and practiced injecting fruit.
It was very slow and done in tiny little steps.
So then visiting the doctors, just sitting there until calm and leaving, next time going in to office but no needles.
Then trying with needles.
Not worrying about panic attacks, just sitting with them however long they take to pass.
So I took a book so dd could spend all day at the doctors if needed, waiting until she was calm and able to agree to vaccinations herself.
Your therapy sounds rushed but I'm sure you could create your own slower program.

Hi lakesidelife It sounds as if your GP Practice was totally on board with the therapy for your DD, which seems important. I can't imagine the staff in my local practice being happy for me to sit around and wait until I am calm but maybe I'm doing them a disservice.

You've done amazingly well, with family who sound like they are trying to scare you. it's not true what your sister has said - after 12 weeks, the effects are not immediately invalidated. Nobody really knows what happens to the immunity over long periods of time, but it will be a gradual tailing off process, whenever it does happen. So find a time to book with the nice vaccinator there, and don't worry about the time frame exactly - maybe try for a bit earlier but if it doesn't work, it's far more important for you to get done with the nice vaccinator. They won't make you be revaccinated because you don't have the evidence - they will find it on their system eventually, even if it doesn't show on apps straight away. It's all too carefully controlled with doses and supply and statistics and things for your information just to vanish. You have had it done, and it will show up. I know things are slightly different in Scotland, so I'm not sure how the procedure is there in details, but I am sure that people must have to change the times and dates of the appointments from what they get sent on the letters - it must happen loads - and those people are not going to all be lost in the system forever. It might take a little bit for the computer to get things sorted out, but that's just admin. They couldn't afford to do everyone again, for one thing! It will be fine. Try to book your second with the nice lady, and good luck.

Hello OP! I’m just catching up with your thread and wanted to add my congratulations to you - very well done!
When you go for your second one, try dangling your arm over the side of the chair and letting it go completely floppy. Imagine it’s a dead jellyfish, let it hang as loosely as possible.
If you can manage that, you will be much less likely to feel anything from the vaccination. It is when we clench muscles tightly that we feel discomfort from intramuscular injections, as the fibres are tightly contracted.
I know your anxiety will naturally make you tense up, but focus on “flopping” as much as you can. If you like, imagine that you actually area jellyfish, and think about which of your annoying relatives you would like to sting afterwards…!
It might help distract you a little. But I think you did so brilliantly the first time, the second one will be very much easier. You now know the venue and staff, the fear of the unknown will not be adding to your phobia, and you know that you can do it, with a little sympathetic encouragement and understanding. Good luck, OP.

If you like, imagine that you actually area jellyfish, and think about which of your annoying relatives you would like to sting afterwards…!

This might work!

I haven't read the whole thread OP, but I just want to say good for you! I volunteer at my local vaccine centre and my heart goes out to all the people I see coming in struggling with their fears (going out in public, open spaces, needles, medics, the vaccine itself, it's not easy for SO many people). I see people come in and I see them struggle and they ALL stand and wait and try to be brave and they ALL make it through the process. All of them! Really, in all my sessions there, we've never had anyone flip out. You have my admiration!

Just in case no one else has mentioned it, please feel free to bring someone with you. If you explain your situation to the staff (or ask your supporter to do it for you) you'll be taken great care of.

If you were in my centre, I'd give you a massive smile and make a joke about queuing and why don't we have a bar in this place.... I hope someone does the same for you.

Ignore my message! I've just seen that you did it! Hurray!

Thank you Notimmaturejustscared!

I also managed to go through with it this morning! My experience was quite similar to yours in that the people were lovely and made a real effort on my behalf (which I did feel guilty for). I could feel myself getting sweaty at the reception area when they were asking the standard questions, so I told the lady I was likely to faint and she straight away had someone take me to a special room they had at the end of the centre with a reclining bed and a proper door that closed (otherwise I would have had to stand in a queue outside a makeshift cubicle with a thin curtain not hiding much)! The man who did it was amazing and so patient. I told him I might swear at him and he said 'I don't give a fucking shit' (nicely!), and then he let me faff around finding a position I thought was likely to be the least painful. Then I spent about ten minutes telling him not to do it, but then I felt guilty I was holding people up so I said 'ok just do it' and then swore A LOT! I could also feel it, despite having previously been assured I would feel nothing at all. I have to say, I was on an absolute high afterwards at first but eventually I felt sick and faint so I was made to sit outside for around half an hour being watched by a special person they have for the occasions on which they have someone they're concerned about (it was raining, too!).

I actually never planned to have children - pregnancy was a surprise for me and I managed to get through the first without any needles whatsoever (again, I am not proud and I certainly attended many appointments to have routine tests carried out but just couldn't go through with them). As a result I was fast-tracked onto a CBT course to overcome the fear but it had no impact whatsoever. I also paid a lot of money for hypnotherapy but it never had any effect.

Anyway, I have rambled! But thanks so much again... now I've got to try and forget about it for the next 12 weeks or so before reliving the whole thing again

Wow, well done @QueenOfDuisburg, another brave person. I hope you also have a reward in mind for yourself?

Now see what you've done @Notimmaturejustscared, you've not only used your bravery to get yourself through this but helped someone else too. Excellent!

Oh QueenofDuiserg, I've been thinking about you all day and I'm so pleased and proud of you (hope that doesn't sound too patronising). I know how hard it must have been and what it took for you to get there. Do not feel guilty about the time you took or the extra support needed. You need what you need - nobody goes through the panic and stress for shits and giggles. Have you told your DH yet?

And now I'm crying again, both at your post and MRex's follow-up.

And I love the attitude of your sweary vaccinator. It's great to hear about so many nice people in the Centres. It gives me hope that my sister is the anomaly and even if I can't see the same vaccinator again, there is a good chance that another person will be just as lovely.

Well done @Notimmaturejustscared and @QueenOfDuisburg, I don't know either of you but I'm proud of you!

Please can you send me some of your courage for Tuesday as I have a dentist appointment and I'm absolutely dreading it as it'll involve injections. The dentist is lovely, they specialise in nervous patients but I really don't know if I can do it. I've been putting it off for months and while the logical part of me knows the longer I leave it the worse it'll get the terrified, irrational part of me says leave it. I also keep telling myself I've got through the vaccine and therefore I can get through this but I don't know.

I'll be thinking of you both and telling myself if you can do it then I can!

More boots please! :)

Have skimmed through - well done you! I've was (and pretty much still am) needle/hospital/dental phobic and I've learned some tricks to share - might help someone!

If you're a fainter it is important to keep your blood pressure up. Your bp dropping is what causes you to faint. To do this you need to keep clenching and unclenching your whole body.

For me, if it's getting bloods done I need to prep. I need to be sitting outside the surgery for at least 10 minutes to calm myself down. I take a bottle of water with me (and pre covid) into the appointment with me. I also lie down for this.

I use emla cream to numb the area - that's a game changer.

Lie down if you need to. Better to hit the deck voluntarily than by faint.

Earphones and loud banging tunes you probably wouldn't want to listen to normally but it's a distraction.

Learn to accept it's ok to faint, don't fight it. I've never mastered the head between the knees - it only postpones it for me.

Good luck all x

Back with an update. It seems that the approach I had taken with my sister – just keep talking over her, change the subject and don’t be brought into a conversation about vaccination at all – has had an unexpected turn: I was speaking to my mum yesterday – she was also focusing the conversation on vaccinations and I was doing my best to disengage, when she suddenly started complaining about the terrible people in the vaccination centre near me and how badly they’d treated DSis. Turns out DSis has not worked there for almost 6 weeks. She had been calling regularly to check on her shifts and kept getting told she wasn’t needed, then eventually given a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” message. So she’s still waiting and hopefully she’ll be brought back to help again but it’s not looking that promising and, in the meantime both she and my parents are furious at this brush off.

As DM said, nobody is more interested and dedicated to the vaccine programme than DSis and the media is full of reports about the centres being busy so it makes no sense that they aren’t using her.
I just can’t help feeling that her lack of empathy and customer service has been noticed and had been her undoing. I suppose it’s one thing to be dedicated to the vaccine programme but quite another to be dedicated to the people coming through the door. I know that she made the “stab this one hard/make this one sting” joke on at least three occasions when people she knew came in. I wonder if one of them complained or even just that this was overheard by someone else in the queue. It’s not exactly the friendly, relaxed, welcoming service that would put people at ease. As I mentioned in my OP, she would often tell me, with laughter and scorn about grown adults who were scared of needles, and I wonder if she just wasn’t able to disguise this scorn and they decided that she was a liability to have around?

Or, I could be looking into it a bit too much and maybe they are just overstaffed and she’s not needed. The resounding agreement about her unprofessional nature on this thread though, has made me think. If indeed she has been let go because she wasn’t promoting the right attitude then I think it’s a shame that nobody has had the guts to tell her straight so that she understands that her behaviour has been unacceptable in that setting.

The funny thing is that she stopped working there 3 weeks before my vaccination, so all my worrying about her being there was actually irrelevant but I didn’t know that because of my reluctance to talk to her about the situation. You’d think this would boost my confidence for the second dose but I still have a lot of anxiety about not knowing why the centre aren’t using her and the possibility that she could still be brought back and end up being there on that day.

I’ll also admit that the fear and anxiety about #2 is creeping in now that I’m three weeks in and aware that my second letter will be coming soon. I keep coming back to this thread and reading my previous posts and others, to remind myself that it is do-able and that I’ve already achieved so much.

I wanted to revisit this thread in advance of jab#2 which is now imminent. I did wonder about starting a new thread but not sure how that works with the TAAT rules, plus I think it’s useful to have the background here. I realise though, that I’m likely to get a lot of cancel the cheque type comments from those reading the first post for the first time.

I’ve been on a bit of an emotional rollercoster in the past couple of weeks in terms of coping with the second vaccination. Again, I’m very motivated to get this but cannot shake this very deep-rooted phobia and the physical reactions that come with it. I had been feeling relatively calm and prepared, using my experiences with the first jab to help me get into the mindset that I need to be in, in order to out myself through this again. The biggest tool in my arsenal was familiarity – being able to visualise the centre and knowing what will happen, whereas last time there was a huge unknown factor for me. Knowing I can request a private space and be reclined for the jab and knowing that there were some wonderful staff who took my situation seriously and were happy to help and give me extra time to cope with what was happening.

More recently, however, I feel like this security blanket has been torn away from me. The new drive to get as many vaccinations done as possible has meant that the centre I attended – and indeed as far as I can see, all others in a 30 mile radius, are now working a drop in system for all over 18s and for 40+s who are 8 weeks post-first jab. This means long queues and waiting times. I don’t think I can face that. I know that once I get to the front of the queue to get into the building, I can explain and be fast tracked from that point but I genuinely don’t think I have enough willpower to stand waiting and slowly moving forward towards what is waiting for me. I especially know I can’t do this if I have DH snapping at me for being upset while I wait. I also worry about not being able to get the private room or being rushed through the process in this new situation. I completely understand and agree with the need to get as many people vaccinated as possible and am trying not to be selfish but I do feel as if I’m back at square one.

Additionally, a lot of people I know are now being given appointments for their second dose at a different centre from the first one. Again, I was so sure (and the staff at the first appointment backed this up by emphasising to me that I knew what to expect and the lovely vaccinator even giving me her name so I could ask for her again) that I’d be in familiar surroundings that this situation has really rocked me. I don’t think I can bear the thought of navigating a different setting, not knowing if a private area will be available and coming into contact with different sights and sounds. One colleague had to go to a drive through and that thought completely freaks me out. I wouldn’t be in any fit state to drive so DH would have to but just the thought of stick my arm out of the window at a masked person makes me want to be sick. I’ve had so many sleepless nights recently at the thought of this.

This isn’t just a panic-fuelled rant though. I have come up with a potential solution to get me through this. DH thinks I’m being ridiculous and I’d really like to run this by the lovely folk here for you to see what you think – please do be honest and pull this apart where you see pitfalls. I’d rather think it all through in advance than be blindsided on the day.

So, my understanding is that blue envelopes are still coming out BUT you can go to a drop in centre if you want to be vaxxed at any time post-8 weeks, rather than wait for the envelope. DH and I both have a day off work next Monday and we’ll be at the 9 week mark by then. I’ve heard anecdotally that the centres tend to be relatively quiet first thing in the morning so I suggest that we get up early and go there on that day really early. Hopefully we’ll avoid any queues and I’ll be able to speak to the staff about my requirements without feeling too rushed. If we’ve got it wrong and there is a massive queue, we’ll just need to see how I’m feeling but be prepared to turn back and try another time. The advantage I can see with this is that I’ll be going to the familiar centre but, more importantly, for the first time in my life I’d be actively making a decision to put myself in that situation and therefore taking control of things. I won’t be frogmarched to the door or going because a letter has told me to. I’ll be doing it at a time and in a way that works for me and as soon as I started thinking this way, I instantly felt a lot calmer and was able to sleep better. The massive disadvantage is that the lovely vaccinator who specialises in phobic patients only works Sundays so I know she won’t be there. This does feel like a hurdle but I’m hoping that there will be some equally lovely people available and I won’t end up with an inexperienced, fumbling volunteer or someone who is really unsympathetic to my needs.
As I said though, DH thinks this suggestion is nonsensical and we need to wait for our blue envelopes and follow the orders there. He’s also said that we might receive our invitations before that Monday. My response to this is that if we do, and if we are being sent to a different centre, I’d rather ignore that invitation and proceed with my plan. He is pretty upset about the idea of not following things to the letter (no pun intended) and again just doesn’t understand the effect this is having on me. Keeps saying “you were fine after the last one, why on earth are you behaving like this again?” and also questioning my need for the private room and reclining seat – “just do it like a normal person, you’ll be fine, you’re making it a bigger deal than it is”.

Please be honest. Does my plan look workable? What other steps can I take to help me through this stage?

I’m also trying to keep the fear at bay on a few other things. The fact that I’ve having AZ, for example, the blood clot risk doesn’t worry me but increasing reports about AZ not being recognised for travel and events does – I am terrified of having gone through all of this for nothing and then have to do it all over again to get a different vaccine in my system. Likewise, the thought of boosters and having to put myself through this trauma again. But, in both cases, I’m trying to keep a lid on the fear and focus on one thing at a time, with the very next step being the imminent second vaccine.

As I said though, DH thinks this suggestion is nonsensical and we need to wait for our blue envelopes

You don’t! You absolutely don’t, that’s why they’ve made all the centres drop-in. Your plan sounds fine and your unhelpful DH needs to shut up.