yovophobia

When cranky children head into the OR, we have a little trick up our sleeves, one that helps to take the edge off the experience for them. Its called a premed, and it involves dosing the kiddo up with a small portion of any of a number of lovely drugs. The favourite choice is a benzodiazepine, a drug that will not only make the child sleepy, but also acts to help them forget what we're about to put them through.

If there was ever a child in need of a premed, that child was Fred.

Let's consider, for a moment, the fact that this little man's name is Fred. If you're anything like me, you know that just hearing that name attached to a small West African boy would make you immediately want to be Fred's friend. We all do. Unfortunately, Fred, aside from his true medical problems, also suffers from a lesser-known condition known as Yovophobia. You'll notice that, contrary to form, I haven't included the link to the Wikipedia article on Yovophobia. I haven't quite gotten it approved yet; it turns out that an irrational and often screaming terror in the presence of white people isn't really a widely-recognized diagnosis. For Fred, at only two years of age, this problem is crippling.

It means that, whenever one of the nurses comes near to take his temperature, a procedure that we all agree is painless when done using the Mercy Ships approved under-the-arm method, Fred immediately starts to cry. And heaven forbid we should do anything with his surgical incision; if you have white skin and come at Fred with anything resembling a bandage, he straight-up loses his mind.

Today, Fred needed another surgery.

The wise anesthetist stopped by the wards about an hour before Fred was due in the operating room, whipped out his pen and wrote the magic words. Lorazepam 5mg PO on call. That might not mean anything to a non-medical person, but in my little Yovo heart I knew it meant that Fred had the chance to go to the OR without a complete meltdown.

In due time, the call came and little Fred received his premed, screaming the entire time. I steered clear for a while, waiting for the calming effects of the drug to kick in, and when I figured it had had enough time to work, I decided to test the waters. Fred's mama was holding him, his little head bobbing back and forth as he fought the inevitable sleep. I came up beside him, put my incredibly white face next to his and waited for the screams. They never came.

Fred bobbed his head in my direction and puckered up his two year-old lips with all the gravity of a judge. With the next loll of his head, he planted them firmly on my cheek, and then he let his head fall back again, grinning at me from behind half-closed eyes, looking for all the world like a drunken old man in a tiny little body.

Fred kissed me. This, my friends, is the magic of a premed.