Our Son's Tantrum at the Doctor's Office

Well I'm not the mom; I'm the dad but this story is relayed by both of us and I am the writer so it is up to me to give you our story.

The year is 1993. Our oldest son is 10-years-old. He isn't one or two but 10. He came down with a fever of 104. We gave him Tylenol and my wife, being a nurse, just kept an eye on him. However, after a day the temperature hadn't receded much at all and he looked pretty sick so we called the doctor and she said to come to the office.

"Do I have to get a shot?" Our son was deathly afraid of needles even at that ripe old age.

After the doctor had taken a culture she said that it probably made sense to give our son a shot of terimyacin which had become the preferential treatment over penicillin at that time.

Our son was sitting on the examining table when the nurse came into the room with the shot.

Suddenly my son fell to the floor and grabbed my wife's slacks and begged saying "Please, no, no, no, I don't want a shot!" That was bad enough but then he began to crawl towards the door much as a person who was dying in the desert would do.

Well, the spunky nurse actually got down on the floor with him as we held him.

He started whimpering and kept it up. His eyes were shut and finally he yelled "How much longer will this be?" Right at the end of his question he heard the door squeak shut as the nurse left. She had been done for 30 seconds and he didn't even know.

Today he is married to a wonderful girl and they have one child; however, his wife is afraid of needles. My wife and I hold our tongues.