Booster Shots
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I was a healthy kid, probably because I never sat still long enough to get sick. I never broke a bone or sprained a wrist, and my tonsils and appendix were originals. I caught chickenpox when I was little, probably from Brother, which left a giant, moon crater scar beside my left eye. Mom blamed it on me. She said she warned me not to scratch, that I’d ruin my face, but I couldn’t help myself. Still, underneath my overall healthiness, a small part of me always worried: what if I got sick and died?
I had a chest cold and a cough one summer. In the middle of that awful, sweaty night when even a thin white sheet was too hot, Mom barged into my room and switched on the overhead light, blinding me.
"I’ve had about as much as I can take!” she said. Mom pulled up my undershirt and slathered my chest with Vicks VapoRub, saying, “Maybe now everyone in Happy Acres can finally get some sleep, dammit!”
Brother wasn’t healthy, like me. He got headaches all the time. When he complained about them, Mom gave him Actifed like candy. She kept a yellow plastic pillbox in her purse just for his pills.
I’d never had a headache before and wondered what they felt like. I was sorry I asked.
"Sometimes the pain is so terrible," Brother paused, "that it feels like a whaler just harpooned my skull and then twisted it around and around. Yep, that’s what it feels like."
I couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a horrible thing to a poor little whale.
Then Brother’s eyes widened. "Wait, no! It's more like someone sledgehammered a railroad spike right here through my left eye socket," he said, pointing to his eyeball. Then he laughed.
Brother said Actifed was the only cure, other than decapitation.
"Mom, I have a headache," Brother moaned on Saturday mornings when he didn’t feel like mowing the yard or much of anything else. Mom would go to her purse, give him an Actifed from the pillbox, and say, “Why don’t you go lie down and take it easy for a while. I hope you feel better.” Miraculously, his headache always vanished when it was time to go to Rollerama.
I think he milked it.
I did feel sorry for him about one thing. Brother had ugly black moles all over his body like a dot-to-dot. Some concerned Mom, like the tall ones that snagged on his clothing. She’d take him to the dermatologist, and when he came home, he smelled like a burnt steak. I had to leave the room.
Unlike Brother, I kept my complaints to myself. I let them simmer quietly beneath the surface.
Mom recorded our height, weight, and vaccinations in two yellow booklets she kept in the top drawer of her file cabinet. She insisted we were lucky to live in a modern medical age. When she was little, kids died from things like mumps and measles, but I didn’t have to die because I was vaccinated. She said Polio crippled lots of kids, and some lived in iron coffins just to breathe. But when Mom took those booklets out of the cabinet, that meant that sooner or later, we’d end up in the doctor’s office for a shot. And that always worried me.
Mom usually took us to the pediatrician in the summer. She never told me beforehand, probably because she knew I’d worry myself sick. Then one day, I’d pile into the VW thinking we were headed to Larsen’s Dairy for a donut because Mom said so. My stomach would sink as we turned into the doctor’s parking lot instead.
There was a knock at the door, and the doctor came into my tiny room holding a folder. Mom did all the talking as usual while I shivered on the cold examining table, stripped down to my underwear.
Dr. Almklov, a gentle giant dressed in white, pressed his icy stethoscope to my chest and frowned as he listened. He tapped my knee, looked in my ears, gagged me with a tongue depressor, then poked my stomach, asking if anything hurt. When I said no, he smiled and, in his buttery soft voice, said, “You’re in perfect health, young lady. Well done.” He pulled a container of suckers out of a cabinet and told me to pick one. I chose a red one, of course. “You can get dressed now, dear,” he said, scribbling in my chart. “The nurse will be in shortly.”
I liked Dr. Almklov; he was nice.
“You’re doing great!” Mom said. “Keep this up, and we’ll stop at Larsen's Dairy on the way home and pick up those donuts I promised.”
I loved donuts!
There was a tap at the door. A young nurse entered the room carrying a metal tray and set it on the counter behind me. Another nurse followed her in, an older woman with gray hair tucked under her white nurse's cap and a stern disposition. Mom quietly slipped out of the room.
“So, how are you doing today, sweetie?” the young nurse asked.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Do you have any pets at home, sweetie?” said the young nurse.
I told her about Poom, how he always tried to escape our trailer, how he attacked Mom’s iron cord all the time, and how she didn’t like that. Just as I started to relax, the mood in the room changed.
I looked for Mom, but she was gone.
That’s when I saw the old nurse push air from a syringe and flick it with her finger. The room began to spin faster. My heart felt like it would jump right out of my chest. It happened so fast. The nurses exchanged looks and then focused on me.
"So, what was your cat's name again, sweetie?”
Overwhelmed with fear, I slid off the examining table, bare feet slapping the linoleum, and rushed for the door. I didn’t care that I was half-dressed.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, sweetie. It’s just a little prick. It will be over before you know it.”
The young nurse cut me off from the door, asking more dumb questions about my cat when she already knew the answers. Slowly, the two of them backed me into the corner next to the sink like a dog.
"No! No! No!" I cried. The young nurse leaned against me and held my arms tightly. The old nurse dabbed my left arm with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. Then she came at me with her syringe, and I squirmed like a worm on a hook. The young nurse lost her grip, and as she tried to restrain me, I bit her arm.
"We've got a live one here," she laughed. “Hold still, sweetie; just relax.” After they finished giving me two shots and a finger prick for blood, they left me a blubbering mess and told me to finish getting dressed.
The relief of surviving the shots vanished the moment Mom walked in. More than anything, I wanted my mother to wrap me in her arms and tell me everything was going to be okay. Instead, she exploded: "I cannot believe you! You embarrassed yourself and me in front of everyone in this doctor’s office!" Her voice was sharp as a slap. “I could hear you all the way from the goddam lobby!” In that moment, I felt naked.
I got my booster shots that day, but we never made it to Larsen’s Dairy for a donut. The sting of the needle faded before we left the parking lot, but the pain from Mom’s reaction lingered long after the shots were forgotten.
