Rip my heart out already

CT had his 5 year old check-up with his pediatrician today. We have been talking about this day for weeks. He has a great amount of anxiety associated with shots and will not even watch his siblings get their shots. He will excuse himself from the examination room and wait outside the door until it is all over. The last time he got a shot, I had to physically restrain him. I wrapped all four of my appendages around his little thrashing body, all the while he was screaming hysterically. It was great.

This year we have read books about shots, drawn pictures of how he feels and talked and talked and talked some more about shots: why we need them, how they work and that they may hurt but only a little bit and that they are really necessary. I even pulled the, “They won’t let you go to Kindergarten” card. Umm, that didn’t work either.

This morning he woke up with a headache, wouldn’t eat breakfast, told PJ & KP that he wasn’t going to get a shot and then ran away from me and hid when I told him it was time to go.

We got out the door. We went through all the hoops of the 5 year old check-up, discussed at great length with the pediatrician why he was nervous. She too tried to reassure him. He had all sorts of wonderful ideas of how to get out of getting the shots, but she wasn’t biting on any of them.

The nurse came in, fully apprised of the terror he was feeling, and got the job done. One finger poke and three shots later, it was all over. She even told him he was so brave he could have three suckers on his way out the door…and then he smiled.

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