Lingering Effects

C had his annual physical today. He’s tall (4 ft, 11 ¾ inches), skinny (80 pounds), and healthy. Playing the French horn has been great exercise for his lungs and his asthma is currently under control.

He asked before we left the house if he had to have any shots. I said no. But when we arrived I was told there was a vaccination to be had: meningococcal vaccine.

Upon hearing this, C’s face changed completely. He had been in a decent mood, but that was gone in an instant. He drew his long bangs over his eyes and I could just see that he was struggling to hold in a tear. Then he accused me of lying to him. He was angry.

C dislikes the doctor’s office in general – and hates shots. And I really mean hates them. M dislikes them but understands that he needs them, and somehow manages. But C...well, when he gets his flu shot, it takes one or two nurses plus me to hold him while he actively fights us as the doctor administers the shot.

C, understandably, hates anything remotely invasive since his illness. A prick on he finder for a lead test is a battle. If he knows there is a vaccination coming, or a shot of any kind (Novocain for a filling, for example), his anxiety level shoots up. We really have to work to manage him through these experiences, and it’s emotionally exhausting for all involved.

We don’t lie to him about needing these pricks and pokes. I’d rather have the opportunity to talk to him about why we do these things, discuss ways we can get through them and then help him through than lie to him and later ambush him with the reality. I didn’t lie to him today; I didn’t know there was going to be a shot.

With these aversions, I worry about C being able to manage his own health care as he gets older. Maybe it’s premature, and sure, we have a few years of being the responsible parties in this area, but I still worry. Will his aversions and fears compel him to avoid routine medical care?

C also has difficult reactions to certain noises. The fire alarm at school really freaks him out. While I see the obvious connection between his aversion to pricks and pokes to when he was constantly poked and prodded when sick, the noise thing is more interesting. It seems like to comes from a deeper well of fear.

C remembers almost nothing about the hospital. The time when there were the most noises in his room was during the time he was unconscious and/or heavily sedated. His fear of certain noises seems to come from this time. By the time he was becoming alert, the noisiest machines – ones that made noises I could compare to fire alarms - had been or were being removed.

When C is anxious or stressed, we have a little relaxation technique we use – I used it to help him relax for bedtime long before he became sick: we go for a walk on the beach together. I tell him to close his eyes and imagine we are walking along the beach together. It’s very hot, the sky is bright blue with a few passing wispy clouds. We’re walking at the water line, slowly, looking for beach glass among the pebbles the tide has brought in. The cold water is lapping at our ankles and the contrast of the temperature of the water to the temperature of the air is striking. We look for boats out on the bay, and feel the motion of the current and the waves.

Today, at his appointment, we took our walk on the beach. C still hyperventilated a bit and buried his head in my hands, but we got through the shot. Overall, this was in improvement from the last shot he had, but it was still hard, for both of us.