Vaccination: A doctor’s office drama. Twenty-second of twenty-six posts in the April 2017 Blogging From A to Z Challenge on the theme “Whispering Chimneys: My Altamont childhood” — where my genealogy journey began. Wish me luck — I’m in the home stretch!
At some point in my young life, maybe when I was five or six, I had to go for a vaccination. I’m not sure what it was for. I just remember it involved getting a shot — and I was nervous about that needle.
Mom drove me to the doctor’s office — up Carmen Road past St. Madeline Sophie’s Roman Catholic Church where we went every Sunday. Along the way, she tried to buck me up.
“It will feel like a little pinch, then it will be over,” she told me. That didn’t sound so bad. It was probably more the newness of the experience that bothered me — entering unknown territory and not sure what to expect.
At the doctor’s office
When we arrived at the office, there was a doctor (he wore a white coat over his suit) and a nurse (she wore a white uniform with a sweater and a little hat). My mom and I were both in dresses (folks dressed up to go to the doctor back then).
The nurse seemed nice. She picked me up and sat me on the examining table — where I swung my dangling feet back and forth nervously.
As my mom stood behind me, the nurse pinched my arm and quickly gave me the shot.
Mom was right, it really wasn’t so bad — and I might have forgotten all about it, except for what happened next.
A swooning drama
The nurse suddenly got a shocked look on her face and rushed around the table behind me. “Doctor!” she called out — and I turned around to see Mom slumped on the floor. She had fainted!
Next thing I knew, the doctor rushed in and they helped my mom onto the other examining table where they fussed over her until she came around. Meanwhile, I just sat there with my sore arm — all but forgotten.
How could I know Mom couldn’t stand the sight of needles? Or that all the while she was telling me not to be nervous, she was probably nervous herself? Or that she had to overcome her own trepidation to be sure I got my shot?
For years I laughingly thought of this incident as the time I was upstaged by Mom — but now I realize it was one of those small acts of everyday bravery that it takes to be a mother.
Up next – Whistleberries: My first nickname. Please stop back!
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