Experience As a Flashlight:   I didn’t mind my office job except for one event that happened each year that terrified me.  Each year I had to undergo a physical exam.  During the exam, the doctor had to check certain parts (which embarrassed me).  I had had my first experience with that when I was inducted into the Army, but that was only a one time thing.  I didn’t have to keep getting those personal exams.  In the office, all the guys made jokes about it, but to me it was personal and quite uncomfortable.

One of my worst experiences was with something called a flexible sigmoidoscopy with no sedation.  This was back in the day when they used that procedure instead of the colonoscopy where sedation is given.  Back then, I felt every painful turn and retraction.

Over the years there have been other types of exams from body scans for signs of cancer, open mouthed surgeries, raised arms after ingesting nuclear materials and many others.  As a claustrophobic, I have learned how to stay calm while going into a tube for an M.R.I.

What started as subjects too embarrassing to mention are now routinely discussed with my family doctor or a specialist.  I am able to disassociate myself from the subject matter and talk as though it were happening to someone else.  I have learned that once we get past certain thresholds  things seem easier to deal with.

While I thought ignorance was bliss back then, I have learned it is better to know what I am up against and get busy dealing with it.  We human beings are able to cross many thresholds.  Knowledge is power.