pain management

Yesterday Owen had off from school and I thought that would be a great day to take the kids for their lead test, not that there's ever a great day for needles but they could both get tested at the same time. So in the morning I took us to the pediatric wing of the hospital in the neighborhood we used to live in. I'm filling out forms and trying to police the kids simultaneously when our visit to the hospital suddenly seems to dawn on Owen. He asks, 'Do I have to get a shot?' and I pause weighing what the best thing is that I can say. How can I spin this in a positive light? Owen never had a problem with shots until this past August, when he had to get five shots before starting kindergarten. That whole experience was traumatic enough but he also got sick with a fever and vomiting afterwards, whether because of the immunizations or some ill-timed virus, who knows. Since then as soon as he hears he might need a shot he starts bawling, really loud theatrical emotionally drawn out crying. So, on cue, when I admit that yes he needs a lead test he starts screaming 'No! I don't want a shot!' I am trying to reason with him calmly and get him to quiet down
'Owen it will be a quick prick and then it's over.'
'Shhh Shh, it will be okay. '
'Take a deep breath like you do in karate.'
but the crying doesn't stop, if anything it's like a snowball of hysteria and I say, calmly but pointedly, over the bawling, 'Owen there are children in this hallway who are seriously ill can you please calm down?'
Nothing doing.

So I take Owen and Oona into the room where blood's drawn and ask if I can shut the door so his screams aren't disturbing the actual patients. There's a bed shaped like a purple dinosaur and lots of kid friendly decor and stickers, what more could a kid ask for. But Owen crouched in the corner by the door crying so hard I can't even tell if he can hear anything that the nurses and I say to try and calm him down. The nurses ask why the kids are getting tested and I run through my list: 100 plus year old house that husband does renovations on, recalled Thomas toys with son that puts everything in his mouth and the playground my children went to a lot recently where it recently came to light that there's elevated lead levels in the soil. No, I don't just get tests to stick my needlephobe son full of needles. I am sleep deprived and Owen's crying is pulling at every frayed nerve in my body. I start feeling like such an abject failure as a parent with Owen and his bawling. Like I'm an abusive mother and there must be something emotionally wrong with me, him, or both of us for him to freak out like that. The nurses didn't say anything negative, one commiserated and said her daughter acted like that when she was six, but I just feel like I'm so obviously the bad mom, the one who can't calm her kid or looks annoyed at her clearly upset child, like I'm so not helping Owen in his time of need. The one nurse said I could come back with Owen on another day but she understood when I said I'd rather push through this and take the test today than come back with him at a later time because I think it would be worse, my logic being better to get it over and done with than the whole terror be magnified even more with anticipating a later date. We were going to do Owen first be he was too upset so Oona got on the dino-bed and started crying. I don't think she would have cried had it not been for Owen. She loves him so much and was so concerned over his crying, I think that scared her. She bawled hard for about ten seconds when her finger was pricked and they started drawing blood but after the nurse said they were milking her like a cow she said, 'no piggy' and oinked for her. I don't know of any pigs that have been milked before but she was fine after that, even though they were still milking her finger for blood, filling up two tiny vials. When she was done she got a Garfield band aid and a Dora sticker (no cable for us so she doesn't get the whole Dora thing) then I put her back in the stroller and turned my attention to my son, cowering with red swollen eyes in the corner. It took some effort on my part to pick up Owen, he’s skinny but put up a good fight. After a couple false starts I got him and carried him to the dino-bad where two other nurses helped pin him down and a third one prepped him for the finger prick. I had his shoulders down and my top half pressing his torso to the bed, at one point I dropped my head to his chest so he couldn’t see me laugh. I am a nervous laugher and he was like... all I could think of was some scared straight film I saw in grade school where they talked about how people on PCP can break through handcuffs. He's screaming at the top of his lungs 'No no no shots. No shots never ever again!' he was so consumed by his screaming it didn't break or alter after the finger prick. He continued to bawl through the filling up of the two vials, after the band aid, through my profuse apologies and thank yous to the nurses for all their help, through the trip down the elevator where I tried to joke that if his finger tip still hurt maybe we should amputate (oh I grimace at the lead balloon that was but if Toby had said it I'm sure Owen would have laughed), through the walk in the park to the car. He wouldn't stop crying until he talked to Toby on the phone while we were in the car. I hear him calming down as I’m driving and it hurts me that it’s so easy for him with Toby and not with me.

Throughout the day Owen told anybody that would listen about his blood shot test looking very serious and holding up his finger covered in yet another Garfield band-aid as evidence of his ordeal. During karate he showed it to his instructor and mentioned that it was still hurting him, he had karate 8 hours after his blood shot test. I was grumbling about it to Toby after putting the kids down for the night, ‘How can it still hurt him? With my luck he’ll develop necrotizing fasciitis in that finger and it will all be my fault.’ I love Owen so much but there are times when I feel like he doesn’t like me or that I can’t comfort him when he’s sad and that is so integral to what a Mom is, it’s disheartening. Every mistake I make with my kids is like another nick in my heart, it makes me feel awful and guilty and unbearably sad.