Got Shots: Part Deux
First of all, this title has nothing to do with the post other than the fact that the post is about taking my deux-year old to “get shots”… I set off to write a very different post than this ended up being, which happens sometimes. Okay then! Onward!
The guiltxiety one feels before taking her child to get shots is not unlike the OMG-I-can’t-do-this-but-oh-fuck-I-have-to feeling reserved for breaking up with a significant other. For confrontation-phobes such as myself the idea of breaking up with someone used to be so horrific that I’d wait months of sleepless nights to break up a relationship no matter how long the relationship even lasted. A one week relationship would quickly turn into three months on account of my being allergic to confrontation, paralyzingly afraid of inflicting pain on anyone, douchebag or otherwise.
Until finally, I’d give in. “We need to talk,” I’d say before lighting four cigarettes at once.
Even though it’s been a cazillion years since I was a young’n lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, I still remember the feeling well, the feeling of knowing something they didn’t. Of knowing that our “getting together to talk at the coffee shop” wasn’t because I wanted to discuss the latest episode of Friends or whatever but because, I was about to do something painful and mean, that even though it was, “for the best! We are clearly a terrible fit,” it would seem, at the time, for the worst. It was vomit inducing at best. I’ve never broken up without throwing up. True story. So gross. The end.
Last Tuesday, the morning of Fable’s two-year-six-shots-due-check-up, I woke up in the morning panicked. My guilt was palpable, so palpable in fact that I spent twenty minutes on the toilet tending to my stomach issues. Sorry TMI but that’s what happens to me when I feel like shit. I personify “pun intended.”
That morning Fable and I cuddled for at least seventeen minutes longer than usual. And then we read Olivia sixteen times to our usual twelve. I let her have a cereal bar for breakfast, filled my purse with animal cookies, let her bring her baby dolls (and stroller) in the car with us, played her Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi on repeat, sang along with her, drove the slow way down La Cienega… Parked three blocks from the doctor’s office so we could enjoy the fresh air, fallen leaves.
And then I broke the news. “Fable,” I said. “You’re about to get shots. A lot of shots. And it’s going to hurt and you’ll likely cry. It’s okay. I’ll most likely cry, too. It’s not you, it’s me. I don’t want you to get sick and/or die from any preventable diseases and one day you’ll be able to understand what I’m talking. For instance, your Gooey almost died of polio when she was little and that sucked and now she has a two inch leg difference which is a super big pain in her ass. Anyway. You’re just going to have to love me despite the fact that I’m hurting you right now.”
But Fable wasn’t listening. Here I was finally with the balls to tell her the truth and she didn’t want to hear it! And clearly she knew what I was talking about because my children are geniuses. They can hear everything in such an advanced way.
I used to beg Hal to take Archer to get his shots. He was a difficult baby at the doctor. Hated having his ears checked and his temperature taken. Refused to get on the scale. It was always a battle no matter how painless the procedure.
Fable is not her brother. She LOVES the doctor and her stethoscope. She loves the scale, being measured, giggles when the doctor takes her temperature, checks her pulses, shines bright lights in her eyes. She even gladly opens her mouth to say “Ahhhhhh…” when the doctor asks. (See? Such advanced listening skills. She’s like 97 percentile in hearing comprehension and listening mathematics.)
Which makes knowing what’s coming next even worse. With Archer, the damage was already done. He was PISSED, crying angry tears and “get me the hell out of here” before having any knowledge of the incoming shots. He was already like, “fuck you! I hate you!” which is an easier scenario to be in because you’ve already lost. It’s like telling someone that hates you that you’re going to punch them in the arm. They already hate you so…. not much is going to change when you punch their arms. Not that I would every punch anyone in the arm, hater or not, but you know what I mean. It’s a lot harder to break bad news to a happy person than it is an angry one. Real talk.
And Fable could not have been more in love with me, the doctors, the nurses… Even the tray of 7897983198 syringes was a wonderful thing.
I tried to warn her.
“NO! YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! IT’S OVER! IT’S ALL OVER!”
“What’s over? What? Huh? I love and trust everybody in the whole world and am quite happy to see you and your needle friends!? What’s a needle again? Oh, it doesn’t matter. Love and rainbows happily ever after the end.”
“Fable? This is going to hurt a little. See the band aids?”
“Yaaaah,” she said, still smiling.
They pricked me first. I needed a TB test in order to volunteer in Archer’s class. Fable watched and smiled. She thought it looked like… fun? I guess?
Until it was her turn.
I held her in my lap and closed my eyes.
Boom!
But there were no tears.
“No.” she said, angrily. She gave the nurse the “step off me bitch” hand but did not cry.
Shot two?
“NO!”
Shot three?
“NO! Mama? Nonononono!” Once again, she pointed her finger at the nurse. Scowled. But again, no tears.
She made it through all 9,874 shots without crying. Clearly a Christmas miracle. It wasn’t until they pricked her finger for her anemia test that the tears finally came, followed (of course) by my own tears and “I’m so sorry I’m so sorry, I’m the sorriest mother in all the land…”
But then, as it so often is, it was over.
“We’re done, yes?” I asked the nurse.
“Finished.”
The nurse gathered her things and left Fable and me alone. Alone to blow our noses, wipe away our tears, eat the cookies in my purse, feel relief. FINALLY, relief.
Relief because the worst was over. Relief because it went over better than I thought it would. Relief that I was doing the right thing. Relief that we were in the clear. No more shots. Not for a while at least.
She sniffled. I exhaled. Phew.
We finished the cookies, both of us stronger and more independent than we were before, held hands down the hallway and into the elevator where we then said our goodbyes, exchanged borrowed CDs, Bukowski books and went our separate ways.
Just kidding about the separate ways part.
***
Oh, do I love to read your blog! Todays entry was perfect and I loved it!
Know the throwing up thing prior to confrontation, oh and the post-confrontation-throwing-up-and-feeling-miserable-though-it-was-the-right-thing-to-do thing.
Fable did a good job at the doctors. Brave little girl
My oldest is a nightmare when it comes to shots. The last time she had to have some blood drawn she screamed and hid in a corner behind a chair and it was beyond horrible.
So, when my youngest needed blood drawn I was braced for disaster and sat him in my lap with my hands around his wrists ready to squeeze him still, but when he saw the cap on the needle was his favorite color he was just fascinated. He watched them put in the needle and draw the blood and never flinched or even said, “Ow.”
It’s amazing how different two kids from the same genetic source can be.
Wow Fable is pretty much amazing! I love her little attitude with the pointing and saying “no” to the nurse. Doesn’t that nurse know that no means no?
I’ve got the reverse going to you and Korinthia…oldest was only vaguely annoyed, at best, over any shots. My youngest? Oh boy howdy. She is NOT impressed, she is NOT amused, and she is GOING to tell the world all about it at the top of her little lungs!
Oldest did something similar to Miss Fable with the “No.” and pointing for his two year shots as well – hands on hips, shaking head, “No.”
I am frequently flabbergasted on how different two babies from the same family can be. By now you’d think I shouldn’t be. But its a near daily happening right now!
Now that my kids are both in school, I am happy to leave the flu shot to the school nurse, although I do always await the call telling me that my oldest has kicked the nurse in the teeth. Hasn’t happened yet.
The younger one is pretty calm about it. We have a ritual of getting Munchkins at the drive-through on the way, so she’ll have something to look forward to. The five-year shots were no fun, but she didn’t really holler. Also, our doctor’s office brings in two nurses with a syringe or two each, so they all get done at once.
Remember how doctors test a baby’s hips when they’re really little by bending them at a kind of unnatural angle? And making them scream and cry? I am a toughie so when the pediatrician warned me I might not want to watch that part I ignored her. Eleanor cried for a minute and then got over it, but I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.I still feel sick thinking about it.
But Fable is magic and light personified! No little pinpricks could get her down.
“Borrowed CDs and Bukowski books,” this part is sooo accurate! I never could break up with anyone gracefully (is there such a thing?!) and can only imagine the horror of shots with my children – well done!
I am just happy to hear a mom out there in L.A. that went and got those very important vaccines without thinking the government was poisoning their kid with evil! Also, Fable kicks ass!
My little one is getting his 2yo shots this week. He was brave as a lion for his last ones, but I think being too young to know what was up helped. This round I dread. I know exactly what you mean about the breakup–that feeling of knowing something bad that the other one doesn’t. We always get ice cream afterwards. I need it as much as the kids.
wow! how brave! (both of you) I still have 4 months to wait and fearing on how it will go. My daughter is like Archer so the Doctors and nurses will be very aware as soon as we enter the building :S! . great entry!
Fable is amazing. Love the “nonono”and the hand. I’m already trying to brace myself for my guy’s 2-year appointment in January. He is more like Archer, too. Breathe in, breathe out.
Your line “don’t want you to get sick and/or die from any preventable diseases ” is brilliant – unless you are a parent, you really don’t understand the controversy to its fullest…
I feel your pain, i get butterflies every time I have to take my little girl for shots…she HATES the doctor, exactly like Archer…and I want to cry every time they give her needles…my only ray of light is that at 12 months, she’ll forget
Shots are so hard, but so glad to read that you are vaccinating. It is so important.
My mom wasn’t vaccinated and almost died of Polio because of it. She’s lived her life one leg two inches longer than the other and has suffered from back pain (not to mention an inability to wear high heels or go barefoot) her entire life. Fuck. That. I’m about as pro-vaccine as it gets.
She’s lived her life *WITH one leg longer… I mean.
Like all mothers, I hate taking my daughter in for shots. I spend those extra moments hugging, kissing, and giving in to keep her happy. I don’t know which way is better to administer shots, but at my doctor they make me hold my daughter down. She starts panicking and tensing up, and the shots end up hurting her ten times more than they would have. It just seems barbaric to hold my child down, but I too want to keep these preventable diseases away. After the last appointment though, I seriously considered changing doctors.
Omg, I thought I was the only one who palpitates ferociously the day of (week before) a vaccination visit. Isn’t that the worst? The doctor’s have the right idea making the nurses do the shots, they don’t want to be the bad guy. Unfortunately, Evie’s too smart for that and she freaks out the minute we walk in the room. The scale is evil, the chairs are evil, everything is evil to her 18 month old eyes.
What I don’t get is that in this age of crazy technology where we can check our email from a public toilet if we want to, why the hell can’t we give vaccines without the needle? Poor kiddos.
Great writing as always, but the last 2 lines just cracked me up
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First time commenting: I’m with you! I will do it because I power through things but wow I definitely vomit when faced with children’s shots. Even when they’re not my children.
That girl is a trooper! And you tell a story so darn well.
Very much enjoyed.
Of course the last shot is the worst. I loved the story though, you tell it so well.
The “step off me bitch” hand line cracked me up, even as I was remembering my own girls’ shots and feeling a twinge of that same nausea. (Even worse for me was when I took my older daughter to get her ears pierced for her 4th birthday. She may have begged to go, but I still felt like a demon monster fresh off the boat from Hades when I had to hold her down for the second ear. At least shots serve a higher purpose!)
I don’t vomit when I’m stressed. I get the nervous poops. F’real. So yeah, I feel you.
My 11 month-old just had to have blood drawn the other day and they just kept squeezing and squeezing his poor little finger. He bitch slapped the nurse and craned around to grab a fist full of my hair with his bloody hand, the better to yank my head down and scream “MAIM!” into my face. (It’s what he calls me. We don’t know why. Not mama, not when he’s in pain. Always ‘Maim.” Thanks, bud.)
The sobbing, OH the sobbing. They do the shots with multiple nurses here, too, to get them over with more quickly. It’s always hard. Always full of guilt. We do what we must, but man… the tears just kill you, the knowing pain is coming. That part of this job can kiss my ass.
My husband does shot duty… End of story. Period. Amen… I can’t handle needles around me or my child
Oh man, this comes at just the right time for me. I just wish one, just one, of my kids would be like Fable (hilarious, btw). My daughter just had her 3 year shots yesterday (and I warned her about it for days before) and I had to hold her down. She looked at me like I was the second most evil person ever (the nurse being the first of course) as she screamed and tears poured out of her eyes. The finger prick wasn’t so bad but the shots… oh we cried. And tomorrow my son goes in for his 2 year shots and he will react just as bad if not worse. Plus they both have to get blood drawn. Tomorrow will not be a fun day for any of us. I know it’s for the best but it still sucks.
Six years isn’t a “cazillion” years. And I can tell you, after raising four kids, the mistake here is making a huge deal about the doctor. A friend of mine used to warn her son “you’re going to the doctor in six days, I want you to be really brave… you’re going to the doctor in five days… etc., etc.” Ridiculous. Naturally, by the time the appointment day arrived, he was scared shitless. Visiting the doctor is a part of life, and if you make it into a huge deal, then it will be. At least you’re getting them vaccinated, though. God knows the “no shots” idiot movement started on the west coast.
When my son got his 2 year shots he just stared the girl down, he didn’t car until she put a bandaid on him, he hates sticky stuff on him.
It’s hard but good for you for staying with her and helping her, I have had moms who would leave their baby on the table to go out of the room while they get the shots, Yah I’m nice but way to scare the kid even more,abandon them while a stranger stabs them.
Becks,
I laughed, cried, giggled and whole-heartedly related to this. My first born, Thomas is just like Archer was at the doctor. So hard to do anything and everything was an invasion of his being. My Christopher, who is not much older then Fable, is just like her. Loves the doctor, is social, chatty, loving, warm and so good. No tears with shots, just rage, that a lolly takes away in a second.
Sadly, I personally relate to my first born with all my worry and nerves, but I dream of the day that I can learn from Ciffer and be more chillaxed.
The lessons we learn and and things we see. Thanks for a great blog!
Nick
x
Ask for a prescription for Emla (or Enla?). It’s a topical cream with novicaine I think and other numbing agents. We put it on the shot spots about 30 minutes before we go to the doc and no pain/ no tears!! My 5 year old now has zero anxiety about shots as long as we’re going to use the “magic cream.” The flu nasal mist inoculation was worse than his last batch of shots!
PS- we’ve had the same tube of Enla for a couple years now. It works great for getting splinters out, too!
My son is so similar to Fable when it comes to the doctor. We see a family prac, who sees us all…grandparents through our son, so they adore it when little Mr. Sunshine saunters in. He sits in his chair in the waiting room “reading” the AARP magazines and Highlights for kids to everyone while we wait. When we get to go back, he loves the diagrams in the office, and tells the nurses all about the body parts. It is like they’re his posse. This fall he had several shots for pre-school. I thought that with his age (he’s 3.5 years old) he would finally start to shed tears, but not our boy. After his entertaining exam it was time for needles. I get emotional every time they’re ready to stick my boy. Hate. It. But he just gave them dirty looks, as if to say “How dare you hurt me? Didn’t we just hang out and talk arms, legs, and private parts? The nerve.” Then they hand him a sucker, slap on a Dora band-aid, and smiles return. He sang them “wheels on the bus” and we were off. I swear, sometimes I think I had my baby switched at the hospital, because my genes would not behave that way!
Such a well-told (and painful!) story. I know animal crackers always make me feel better. Especially when I make the noises of the animals before I eat them.
Ha! I love it! I however do not love taking my little one into the doctor for shots. Last visit she got a severe reaction and was covered in some creepy rash from head to toe. Oh and the brilliant doc told me it was fine to give her immunizations while she was sick with the flu. Apparently not. I could have punched her in the face. Ahh… the joys.
xx
November Grey
My baby girl turned 1 this week and already has received more shots than I think I have in my lifetime. Ugh. How I do dread those days. Oh, and your writing is the ultimate inspiration. I love it. Thank you.
Oh man I was cringing all the way through this post. I have needlephobia, and it comes from a really, really awful experience with the polio shot when I was a babe. I was one of those screaming, crying-angry-tears kids and the doctors/nurses held me down, but I was still moving so the needle broke off in my leg and I had a huge bruise/welt that lasted for like a week. Cut to today where I have to take 2 ativan and be pretty much comatose to have shot/blood drawn otherwise I’m having a panic attack before we even get within a 1/4 mile of the doctor’s office.
Oh Rebecca! I totally understand how you feel. My son is terrified of the doctor. He cries in fear as soon as the doctor comes in the room. It breaks my heart and I cry EVERY time! (He’s just a little older than Miss Fable) I make my mother go with to hold him for shots. I just CANNOT do it. I can’t! I had to do it once by myself and it was horrid. I’m so thankful my Mom can go with me and be the bad guy so I don’t have to be!!! But BRAVO to Fable doing so well!!
For the love of God, it’s just fucking shots, people. So much drama. When you sit there and bawl, you are doing nothing more than traumatizing your kids.
oh, golly, you had me laughing at her reaction. i can just picture her telling the nurse to step off. you tell your story so well, bec.
I just have to be a pain (I’m sorry) and address kcmoso and the other commenter who mentioned holding her child down:
Needlephobia is actually a legitimate diagnosis and is often an inherited vasovagal reflex (see http://www.needlephobia.info/pages/Hamilton-Needlephobia.pdf for more info) so sometimes the drama is merited. Shaming your kid or holding your kid down when they are freaking the fuck out can sometimes (not always people, but SOMETIMES if needlephobia is the case, which it was for me when I was a kid) make it so, so much worse for a kid and breed a lifetime of problems with any needle-related procedures and sometimes bleed over into all out avoidance for doctors, dentists, etc. My mom told me later in life that she had an inkling when I was a kid that there was more to my hysterical bawling and screaming when I had to get a shot but the doctor reassured her that “all kids freak out” so she just went ahead with whatever they had to do to get the shots in me, and like I said in my earlier comment, I’m 25 years old and have take serious anti-anxiety/tranquilizers to have any sort of shot/blood drawn.
So, just something to think about, maybe? I’m not trying to make this a great big argument, but I just wanted to put this out there because I think the education is seriously lacking on this legit problem.
I never once mentioned having to “hold the kid down.”
I thought I was the only goof that had stomach problems before my son’s shots. The nurses and I had to hold him down he knew it and since he was a big baby from the start 10lbs he was and still is super strong. I hated it how he wasn’t himself after …cranky clingy. Then I decided to do things my way with my daughter no more 10,000 shots in one visit like I did to my son. She is starting her shots pretty soon she will be 2 and they will be given one at a time …this after doing my research.
The very worst is having to hold your child down knowing that what’s about to happen will hurt. My girl was a trooper like Fable the last time, but we have 15 month shots this week. Eek! Maybe I will ask for an additional nurse so that I can hide in the corner.