Spiders and Snakes

We’re all afraid of something, no matter how big or strong you are.  Like most things, thankfully, our fears soften as we experience life more.  When I was in 8th grade I feared getting cancer because I’d seen cancer patients without hair.   I had blond hair down to my shoulders and felt most 7th grade girls wouldn’t give me the time of day if my hair fell out.  I’ve had my hair fall out and grow back now three different times since then and I’ll tell you years later 7th grade girls still don’t pay attention to me; so clearly my original fear was justified.  That aside, I feel serious fears are generated by personal events permanently imprinted in your head that for whatever reason you’ll never shake.  The trickiest of fears, however, are generated by other people’s experiences – be careful of these, they send mixed signals.

I don’t like spiders and I don’t think I ever did.  Daddy long legs were ok, but giant water spiders always spooked the boots off me growing up on Lake George.  I don’t have nightmares about spiders, but they still make me cringe.  When Devin was a baby Diane and I lived in an apartment in St. Petersburg built next to a wooded area.  We didn’t see many big spiders outside, but plenty of insects, including scorpions, made their way in constantly.  One day when I was taking a shower and had shampoo in my eyes I felt something on my leg.  I got just enough of the shampoo out of my eyes to see a massive black spider attached to my shin.  I screamed at the top of my lungs, back pedaled out of the tub, and tore down the shower curtain like Janet Leigh in the shower scene from “Psycho.”  Diane ran into the bathroom clutching Devin and found me rolling around naked on the floor tangled up in the shower curtain shouting like a nut.  Naked or not, I don’t like spiders for good reason.

You can also get scared from other people’s experiences.  You’ve got to be careful of these fears since the person telling you the story may have a unique perspective.  When I was a hospital CEO in Winter Park, FL  a pediatrician carefully explained to me at a medical staff meeting that he feared the Dove Ice Cream bars served in the hospital cafeteria were going to kill his newborn patients.  I was thinking he meant someone was lacing them with paraquat or cyanide.  No, he explained, the neonatal nurses were eating the Dove Bars, which would make them obese, which would cause them to have heart attacks, where they would then tip over and crush the infants in their bassinets.  WTF.  Isn’t it interesting how some rational sounding people are just plain bat shit crazy? Like disease, however, one person’s fears are different than another’s.

When I was getting prepped for my CAR-T transplant in 2020 the academic doctors at Moffitt Cancer Center explained some patients get bad psychological reactions to the therapy.  I talked to a few patients and one told me he had severe hallucinations in the hospital, the worst was seeing the floor all covered in snakes.  This coupled with the lawyer written risk management material covering all of the potential severe side effects made me seriously question getting the transplant.  My personal oncologist however, assured me, “if you are already crazy, then the CAR-T will make you crazier; but you’ll be fine.” Comforting.

Getting over your fears is not easy, especially if you have a big ticket healthcare item to tackle ahead of you.  Unless you’re a scientist, however,  the worst thing for you to do is start pouring through scientific journals to diagnosis and treat yourself.  Trust me, you will come to the very worst conclusions and scare the bejesus out of yourself.  Instead, you’ll feel better about your chances and your future if you talk to grounded regular people who have been there and done that.  Just avoid Dove bars at all cost; you might just crush a baby.  Slainte.