Shots Not Welcome

Mason had the flu shot at his 5 year check-up last week, and I had his lead levels checked
(because of all the dangerous, tainted toys out there) so that required a finger poke.

Well....he had the shot and did OK, until after the shot. Then the SCREAMING started, "I'm never coming to the Dr again!!!!" " I hate shots!!!!" "I hate her!!!!!" and of course the door to the exam room was open. And I did feel bad for him. I do not like shots either, and I passed on the MMR booster since we could wait until next year, so he would only have 1 shot and 1 finger poke.

Then came the finger poke. Unfortunately, the tech explained the entire process to him, so it took 10 minutes for us to open his little fingers and he was wailing and shouting and screaming and yelling. Other staff came and tried to help calm him down, but it just revved him up more. So I put him on my lap, and we coaxed out a finger. The poke took a millisecond, and then the tech had to squeeze out the blood from his finger which seemed to take forever. Poor guy was grunting through his teeth "It hurts!!" "I want a bandaid now!!" "Stop it!!!" I think the whole process took 10 minutes. When it was done, he was completely calm and about every staff person came in to say "goodbye" to Mason...people we had never seen before. He had made such a commotion, everyone wanted to see who it was and they all knew his name. We went to the bakery for carrot cake and stopped to eat it with Nana. I told Pop about the appt and he said "That vocabulary isn't always so good huh?"

Well, Mason survived, didn't talk about it again, and had a great rest of the day. That night he was so tired from his emotional stress, he asked "Do shots make you tired?" Poor guy. i hope these things get easier for him, because it breaks my heart to see him so upset.