Dreaded Immunizations

The girls had their two- and four-year-old well-child checkups today (I've been postponing it for weeks), and I dutifully gave them the appropriate dosages of Tylenol beforehand to ease the after-shot side effects. After prepping them with the news that they’d each be getting shots and that it would feel like a pinch but the pain would soon dissipate afterwards, they both bravely faced the doctor’s visit with stoic grimaces. All throughout the doctor’s questioning, Esther kept asking, “Give me pinch? Give me pinch?” Anticipating the inevitable with little fear, she was astonishingly cooperative with every request.

Once the immunizations arrived on their own little serving tray, the panic began to heighten, I think mostly for me. Abby generously offered her sister to the sacrifice first, but we thought it might be better to let her go first, since she tends to handle pain better than Esther, on the average. I had the fun job of holding her hands down on her chest while they stuck her with the first blow. We soon realized it might have been better to let Esther go first. Abby started fighting it before it came. “No. I don’t want it in my arm. There’s going to be blood, and I don’t want my arm to bleed! No. Don’t put that in my leg!! Ouch! Oooouuuuuuuuuucccccchhh!!” Tears filled her steel-blue eyes, but she bravely held them at bay, even after the second round (there should have been three rounds, but they were out of the MMR). All the while, I’m whispering in her ear, “It’s almost over. It’s almost over. It’s okay; Mommy’s here.” Then after Band-Aids were slapped on and she was righted, she was almost instantly back to herself again, with the occasional pointing to her leg and suggesting she can't walk.

Esther was another story. She didn’t fight me as I held her on the table. She stared blankly at the nurse who held up the sharp instrument; she watched quietly as they brought it down to her thigh. With her I tried quietly reminding her that it would only be a pinch and that it would hurt for only a second, but as soon as it hit her leg, her wailing began, and it didn’t stop until about ten minutes after we left the office. And she didn’t let us forget about it for the two hours we remained in town either. “My boo-booooooooo!” she whimpered while we zipped quickly through Lowe’s returns to exchange a too-small Roman shade we bought for the nursery. She kept pointing to it, even at McDonald's Playplace where we took them for some after-shot appeasement. She milked it throughout town and all the way home, "I want T (her word for TV or the new DVD player we got for the car)," she'd moan every time we buckle her back into her car-seat.

I realize now that I also need to administer myself the appropriate dosage of Tylenol to ease the onset of a stress-imposed migraine.