There was trauma in the family today. H had to get a shot. And like all five year old little boys, he wasn’t exactly jumping for joy about it. It all started yesterday afternoon. I was sitting in my van, parked faithfully out in the front of the elementary school, reading my book and waiting for 3:18 pm when I would walk down to meet H coming out of his classroom. I get a call on my cellphone. Ironically enough, it’s the school nurse. I wondered for the briefest of instants if they knew I was out here and that’s why they were calling. Then I wondered for a not-so-brief instant what horror had befallen my poor little angel. Turns out, the angel is short a shot. It was overlooked when we (read: K) enrolled him several months ago. I remember wondering if we were missing a shot, there seemed like maybe he needed one. But K assured me all was good. So the nurse told me she’d sent us a letter a few weeks ago, explaining the missing shot on H’s shot record and that if he didn’t have this shot by August 17th, he couldn’t attend school.
Yeah. Yesterday was August 16. “What letter??” kept running through my head. I was sure I would have remembered this. (Turns out, I find out later that K got the letter the very day of my D&E, and didn’t want to bother me with it. As we left for vacation the next morning, he simply *forgot* about it after that. Nice. :dry)So I called up our family doctor and made an appointment to come in this morning and get things taken care of. I made it for 10:30 am, giving us plenty of time to get the shot, even get my TSH tested (finally! I was supposed to do this weeks ago) and have lunch with K before getting H to kindergarten in good time. That was the *plan*, at least. But apparently I forgot this is *us* we’re talking about. Nothing ever goes to *plan* for us.
In the beginning, everything was fine. More than fine, even. We got out of the house more or less on time. I pulled out of the driveway at 10:04 am and pulled into the parking lot near K’s building to pick him up at 10:15. That’s 11 minutes! Seriously, a new record. I was mighty proud. We got to the doctor’s office a few minutes later (the office is on campus, where K also works). Between waiting for K and all, we were there 5 minutes early, at 10:25. You keeping up? So far, everything is great. And we waited very patiently. In fact, we waited very patiently for another 30 minutes. Then we waited not so patiently for another 25 minutes. Yep, that’s nearly an *HOUR* folks. We were easily the last people in the waiting room by a good 15 minutes. The only excuse we were given, “Lab is behind”. All we needed were a fricking shot and a TSH blood draw. Is that too much? Apparently so.
Finally, we were called back. We went to the lab first, for my blood draw. Probably not the best of ideas, since H was already pretty darned nervous about this shot business and while he’s normally very stoic about holding my hand while I get blood draws, he was definitely freaked out this time. Poor kid. So by the time we got into the room with the nurse, H was a nervous wreck. He started to scream the minute K had him jump up on the table. The nurse wanted to go for his leg, and that meant lying down. H was having none of that. My normally docile, sweet and shy boy was suddenly screaming bloody murder, kicking, pushing and fighting for his ever-living life. It took me, K and two nurses to hold him down. Now you see why K came along. Poor little guy, I felt so bad for him. He was clearly traumatized.
But alls well that ends well. The shot was over quickly and H returned to normal within minutes. Which is impressive, considering the shade of purple that he’d turned. It made me recall (not so much fondness though) his first shots at 2 months, in this very building. I couldn’t handle what was going to happen and had to leave the room to pace the hall, I was so upset. I did not like the notion of anyone hurting my baby. The minute I heard his cries though, I was back in that room, comforting him. This time, I had to hold the poor guy down when all he wanted to do was run for his fricking life.
We drove back down to K’s office and grabbed some lunch at the place next door. Didn’t have a whole lot of time because by now it was 11:45 and I had to be back to drop H off at kindergarten by at least 12:30. Thankfully, we were all starving so it didn’t take much coaxing to get us to wolf down our meals.
Now, I don’t know how I feel about telling his kid he’s due for another Hepatitis A booster in February. :blink
