My Little Punishment

My daughter had her five-year wellness check yesterday.    I don’t think they were called, “wellness” appointments when I was a child so if you haven’t heard of the phrase before it means the periodic appointment children have with their pediatrician to check on how things are going.   Growth metrics are collected, questions are asked, the child is looked at and talked to and you, as a parent, have an opportunity to ask about all the things you’re concerned are indicators your child may not be well or normal or is it a bad thing that you can’t get them to eat peas?

It’s also your chance to ask questions like, “why does my son prefer to stand around in soiled pants for hours instead of just going to the bathroom when he needed to in the first place?  In the case of my daughter conversation tends to be around her eye situation, particularly and especially when there is a new doctor (because your old doctor retired) and a medical student in the room with you.

We were told there would be shots in the case we’d like to prepare my daughter.    Then they decided to get a blood sample from a finger prick to check for iron levels.  We did prepare her for the shots, which she was not thrilled about, but understood they had to happen, we all got them and the pain would be over quickly.  

We also told her there would be a little “poink”, as she likes to call things pointy, that would be on her finger first to catch a drop of blood.   I’m going to jump ahead and tell you that this little tiny poink turned out to be one hell of a problem.    But at the point of explaining what would happen to my daughter, it was just a little prick and a drop and it would all be done.

The nurse came back in and my daughter wasn’t thrilled, but was manageable.   The “Poink” machine jabbed into my daughter’s little tiny finger and she went nuts.   She was screaming and kicking and fighting and, woah, we were telling her, it was over, no more pain, just collecting of the blood.   She only needed to stay still so we could get a few drops of blood into the collector tube that didn’t hurt at all and we would release her.

We were holding her because she was combative and bleeding quite freely.   The poink happened to hit just right and we had blood—and it was going everywhere.   It wasn’t so much overall, but it was getting on my hands, my husband’s hands, the nurses’s hands and of course my daughter’s hands.    There was far more blood than would have been necessary to collect in the little tube if only she had calmed down for twenty seconds.  

She yelled at us to let her go.   She screamed that it hurt.   She cried out in general insult and injury.    And by the time she relaxed enough for us to get the tube up to her finger, there was enough clotting factor in her blood that we couldn’t get a drop down into the reservoir for the test.  

We moved on to the shots, which were very fast and involved screams for less than thirty seconds as my husband, the nurse and I held her down so she could get them done quickly.   My daughter fought well though or it would have taken only ten seconds.

With a bandaid on her finger and one on each leg, we took her back to school.    I found out later that her legs did hurt her during the day when she was playing outside.   I apologized to her because I didn’t think the shots would hurt after they were done.   We try to be honest with her because she needs that honesty with all the medical intervention she’s had and I felt badly I hadn’t thought to tell her she might have some soreness later in the day.

As she was talking to me she told me, “and my little punishment hurt too.”   What?   I had to turn around in the car to find out what she was talking about.   She was pointing to the finger that had the prick on it.    I realized she thought we had been saying, “a punishment” when we’d been saying, “a punch test”.   I told her we weren’t trying to punish her at all.   I hope she understood.  

Later in the day I heard her talking to herself as she was playing an imagination game.   She talked about how she had had two shots and they didn’t hurt at all.”   She was definitely putting on a strong face for her imaginary friend.

The Big Boy Update:  My son told me the other day, “I have the most magnificent teacher, Miss Cathy.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I told my daughter that, “her little punishment” was not intended to be a punishment at all and we never want to hurt her.   I hope she believes us, although with all the medical things happening to her, sometimes it’s hard to convince her of our good intentions.