I am in a Rite Aid drugstore on Monday night this week, and I hear howling. It is coming from behind a closed door in the pharmacy area of the store. At first, the sobs are intermittent and low pitched, and then they rise to crescendo shrieks. After about a minute, the crying subsides to periodic gulps interspersed with heaves of relief.
Afterwards, a young boy walks through the door, with his mother’s arm draped over his shoulders, positioned carefully. I hear the maternal murmurings of whether he wants to go and get ice cream. The boy’s father suggests that maybe ice cream would be better after dinner, as a dessert, and he gently teases that the whole store heard him yowl. The youngster grins sheepishly at the strangers around him, his vaccination trauma soon to be forgotten.
I used to hate shots. When I was a child, my mother would take me to annual physical exams, and they often included vaccinations. I loathed going to the doctor, and my mother knew it. I think that is why she never told me about the appointments in advance but merely showed up at school and had me summoned from the classroom. The pediatrician was kindly and professional, but having a stranger examine me filled me with terror. My relief when the appointment was over was beyond articulation; the ice cream cone from Howard Johnson’s restaurant afterwards filled me with delight.
One doctor’s appointment was different. When I was six or seven years old, my parents noticed swollen lymph nodes on my neck and knew that they should be checked out. The physician examined my neck carefully, palpating it with practiced expertise. I heard him remark that he would like to have them removed, a comment that I did not quite understand but filled me with foreboding. Several days later, my parents summoned me to their bedroom and told me that I needed to have surgery at the hospital. I remember being annoyed that they spoke to me as if this was the first time I was hearing the news, as though the doctor’s words had been spoken in a foreign language.
The surgery required an overnight stay at the hospital, and my mother spent the night with me there. I do not remember being traumatized by the anesthesia or the procedure. The morning after, my father came to visit me with the largest stuffed animal I had ever seen. The enormous, light brown teddy bear wore a yellow vest and had large and compassionate eyes. I knew in that moment, and in many others throughout my childhood, that my father adored me.
But the worst was yet to come. A couple of days afterwards, my father drove me to the University of Kentucky Medical Center. I do not remember being told why I was there. I was seated in a chair in a quiet room filled with medical accouterments. My father chatted familiarly with the medical support staff, which I understood was because he was a professor at the medical school. A nurse reached for one of my arms, pushed up my sleeve, and positioned it so that the palm of my hand was face up. She gently swabbed the length of my forearm, and I realized that I was about to get a shot.
I watched with grim fascination as the nurse slid the needle just under my skin creating a small bubble under it from the liquid in the needle. She did this procedure two more times, while I grimaced, though I held as still as stone. I was so relieved when she released my arm, that I almost sobbed with gratitude. Well, that is, until she grabbed my other arm, and I endured two more injections.
I heard my father report proudly to my mother later that night, that the nurses said they had never seen a child sit so still during shots. I was not particularly gratified by the comment; it had simply never occurred to me that I had a choice other than to sit, immobile, and bear it.
The results of the skin tests came in a week or so later: my swollen lymph nodes were due to Cat Scratch Fever, a bacterial infection caused by being bitten or scratched by a cat. No treatment was needed, nor follow-up protocols. My relationship with the family felines remained unscathed.
These days, vaccinations are more annoying than painful. I am profoundly grateful for the scientific testing behind them. I roll up my sleeve, listen to the friendly chatter of the person injecting me, and look elsewhere as the needle enters my shoulder. The resulting pinch is more than made up for by the reassuring benefits and immunity it supplies.
And then there are those fudgsicles waiting in the freezer at home, which I may or may not delay eating until after dinner.