Mother knows best.

The words were harsh, but full of honesty and the obvious truth.

There I was, a seventeen-year-old about to start her senior year of high school, but I was acting like a three-year-old…all because my doctor wanted my finger pricked for an anemia check and I needed a tetanus shot.

My mother had no other words to say to comfort, or to encourage, or to MAKE me do those two things in the doctor’s office. I was practically an adult, I could refuse to do these things in another eight months. But she said them and I am so very glad she did.

“Think about your father lying in that hospital bed after his bypass surgery, drugged to sleep with the tubes in his mouth and chest. Think about the pain of his heart attack and the cardiac cath procedure. Think about how he’s still not 100% two months later. Then you think about whether you really want to throw a fit about having a little blood taken from your finger or get a shot in your arm.”

I am not sure those were her EXACT words, but close enough.

Through another tetanus shot, a hepatitis B series of shots, a couple of oral surgeries requiring an IV, numerous blood draws, and countless pricks of the fingers for blood sugar testing, the words see me through moments of discomfort. I could always be going through something much worse and I could always be preventing a future where I’m lying in that hospital bed by having cholesterol tested. A little discomfort is NOTHING compared to those prospects.