My daughter Katie was diagnosed with hypothyroidism when she was 12 years old. Her treatment plan included daily medicine and a blood draw every 6 months to make sure the medicine was working, that we had the right dosage amount, etc. For her first blood draw, my wife Sara joined Katie and the doctor’s office performed a standard blood draw. Katie promptly fainted. Until that time, we had no idea Katie had a phobia of needles. Like any young kid, she freaked out if she got a splinter, but we didn’t think anything of it. After the blood draw incident, we realized it was full blown phobia of needles.
And yet, we had to continue with the blood drawings, so every six months our entire household went into crisis mode. Katie missed school days due to panic attacks. The day of the blood drawing was full of tears. I took over as the parent in charge of the blood draws and developed a routine with Katie. She put numbing cream on her arm exactly 30 minutes before our appointment. At the doctor’s office she fully lay down and closed her eyes. I would tell her a funny story about my childhood to keep her mind off the needle prick. It was quite the routine.
A couple of years went by and Katie decided to try therapy. We visited several people, but none seemed to help. Eventually, Katie found exposure therapy to be helpful. She started with a picture of a needle by her bedside and worked her way up to tapping her arm with a real hypodermic needle (covered of course). Four years after her initial fainting spell, Katie came to us and told us she wanted to get a tattoo – the final step in conquering her fear of needles.
We took a family vacation to Colorado, where a sixteen-year-old can get a tattoo with parental consent. Of course, there was no way I was just going to let my daughter get a tattoo by herself. I went with her and got my first tattoo that day. I went first to show her just how easy it was. I told myself that no matter how much it hurt, there was no way I would even wince a single time. If my daughter was brave enough to overcome her needle phobia, the least I could do was not cry about a little tattoo. And luckily for me, it really didn’t hurt and I ended up with a very nice dragon tattoo on my forearm. Katie got a small heart in the same place, and she now has over a dozen tattoos.
I have always liked dragons, but unlike Katie, I didn’t run out and cover my body with more tattoos. The first one was special to me, and I couldn’t think of any other reason to get another tattoo. Not for a few more years anyway, after my youngest daughter Harper came out to us as transgender. Harper’s transformation in her last two years of high school is hard to describe. With support from her theater group at school and from her family at home, Harper has blossomed into the best version of herself. I know how difficult it is to be transgender in America today and wanted to show her my support in a way that made it clear I’m all in as an ally. So, I got another dragon tattoo, this time bathed in the colors of the trans flag. Nobody in the family knew what I was doing, I wanted it to be a surprise. I came home, took off my bandage and showed the family my new tattoo. The look of surprise and excitement on Harper’s face told me I had hit the mark perfectly. And later that night, she confirmed it with an Instagram post claiming to “have the best fkn Dad in the world.”
Most of the time, I forget I even have tattoos. They are just there. But whenever I glance down or catch a glimpse in the mirror, I think of my kids and how much I love them. I might not say it out loud as much as I should, but my tattoos say it every day.
