I took a Valium prior to having my first ultrasound-guided steroid injection into my left wrist. The intent was simple: to calm my nerves, as I feared the thought of the procedure.

There was no need for the pre-med before my right wrist injection. Being externally funded, it required only a short, easy drive from home.

Yesterday, however, my husband took me for an ultrasound-guided steroid injection into my right hip. This time, the radiology practice bulk-billed. I didn’t have to pay a $210 gap payment after my Medicare entitlement was applied, though it did mean a 40-minute drive each way to avoid the tolls. I hoped it would provide temporary pain relief and improve the mobility stolen by osteoarthritis.

Until recently, my need for medical procedures had been scant.

My blind trust in the UK’s National Health Service was forged during childhood, built on the back of my mother’s frequent inpatient hospital stays and our regular visits to the family doctor. Whenever Mom, me, and my two younger brothers had health issues, she would march us from our home in Capern Grove, left into Welsh House Farm Road, left again at Tennal Road, and right into Tennal Lane. Our destination was number two: the surgery of Dr Ezzat, who practised out of a converted interwar house built somewhere between 1920 and 1935.

Access was gained through a large timber gate, along a short path bordered by shrubs and trees, and up a couple of steps to an imposing Georgian/Art Deco portalled front door. Immediately inside, patients stood on immaculately polished, dark brown linoleum that ran throughout the building. We reported to a receptionist, summoning her attention by pressing a doorbell mounted on a cream-painted timber and obscure-glazed partition wall. A small sliding hatch would snap open; you announced your name and were told to go to the waiting room on the right.

The high-ceilinged, cream gloss-painted room had two heavily curtained windows to the right and another at the far end. There was a boarded-up fireplace to the left, and a centre table piled with ancient magazines, including Reader’s Digest.

Upon entering, you took your place on the first of many mismatching, dark Thonet bentwood dining chairs lining the room. If there were no chairs available, you stood. They creaked as you sat down and shifted your weight on the small, round, hard relief-patterned seats.

A buzzer proclaimed when the doctor was available for the next patient. The person sitting next to the inner door—on the same wall you had entered through—would get up, open the door, and vanish. Everyone else then moved along one seat, like a sombre game of musical chairs.

It could take a few hours waiting your turn in that gloomy, overheated room filled with crying babies and coughing, sneezing people. Finally, your chance arrived to proceed along a passage behind the records-reception room. You would knock on the doctor’s door, await a muffled ‘Enter’, and step into a bright, white gloss-painted room with a window overlooking the west-facing garden.

The doctor sat at a large, heavy, dark timber desk on the left, beneath a wall-mounted cupboard. You were invited to sit to their left. Dr Ezzat would turn to face you in a dark, padded leather swivel chair that had seen better days. ‘Mother, what can we do for you today?’ he would ask. This ageing, gentle, kind, and direct Egyptian man listened intently. He inspected chests with a cold stethoscope and checked tongues and throats with a routine ‘Say argh’—seemingly his remedy for all ailments.

Exiting past chrome-framed, glazed cabinets housing disturbing-looking medical instruments brought you right back to the entrance. When I grew older, I went to the doctor alone. I trusted him completely and felt safe in his care.

In my teens, however, that safety wavered. I was sent to Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham for a blood test, likely to check for an iron deficiency. In those days, blood was painfully drawn with a thick syringe. Afterward, I couldn’t wait to escape into the fresh air. I rode the bus home experiencing violent, cold shivering. A profound, lifelong fear of needles was born.

Forever the fool, I assumed this hip steroid procedure would somehow be a similar experience to my wrists. I had researched what to expect and was somewhat surprised when I wasn’t asked to change into a gown. Instead, I was escorted by Damian, who was clad in mid-blue scrubs, straight into a large CT scan room. He briefly explained the procedure: local anaesthetic, followed by a CT-guided injection. I wondered what had happened to the ultrasound-guided version I expected.

I was asked to empty my pockets, leave my bag on a chair, and lie on a bed facing a doughnut-shaped machine. A similarly clothed second person introduced himself as the doctor’s assistant, and then introduced me to the doctor. They all wore the same uniform! The assistant reiterated the process, placed a pillow under my knees, and asked me to pull my loose-fitting shorts to my knees and slide the waistband of my underwear down. This exposed the intended site of the injection: my groin. Bizarrely, I had imagined the needle would go into the outside of my hip.

I was sent in and out of the scanner a few times while a screen above me flashed light shapes against a dark background. Next, a pale blue sterile drape was placed over the site. The doctor explained there would be a sting from the anaesthetic, followed by pressure from the steroid injection that might travel down below my knee.

Following an extremely sharp sting of the local anaesthetic, an unpleasant sensation bloomed in my groin, and I attempted to summon my bravery. Closing my eyes, I wondered if it was too late to back out—if I should just live with the ongoing pain and reduced range of motion. The machine was cranked up to full speed and volume. A strange, food-like odour permeated my nostrils, and I briefly wondered if I was cooking. Suddenly, my leg jolted as the steroid went in, sending my entire body into full tension. The doctor told me I was doing really well. I certainly didn’t feel like it, but he promised it would soon be over.

He noted that the pain relief might last for six to nine months, at which point I could have it repeated.

Once the assistant and Damian helped me sit up, my head went woozy. I told them I felt dizzy and started sweating. That teenage bus ride in Birmingham flashed vividly back into my mind. I was laid back down and asked to move onto a trolley—an unwise manoeuvre in hindsight, considering I was still recovering from carpal tunnel release surgery on my hand just three weeks prior.

I kept my eyes closed while being wheeled down a thankfully refrigerated corridor, praying they would not leave me exposed in the main waiting room. I was rewarded with a tiny, screened-off alcove in a side hallway where there was no rush for me to leave. Retrieving my phone from my bag, which had been dumped on my chest, I called my husband with an update. He was parked nearby and promised to pick me up whenever I was ready.

I gave myself five minutes, sat up, slid on my Birkenstocks, and navigated my way back to the reception area. Clinging to the counter, I waited for a form to sign, called my husband to say I was at the front, and waited to be collected and taken home.

Next time, I will definitely take a Valium beforehand.