SHOTS

I read that Penicillin was invented during my lifetime. Must've been real early, because I remember those penicillin shots! The doctor came to our house (yes, I guess that was a long time ago), and if I needed a shot, he and my parents had to hold me down - all 40 pounds of me. He had big old hands with lots of black hair on them. I hated those hands!


Maybe it was then, or maybe it was at the health department, that I learned not to look at the needle. I hated the health department, too. Back then (yes, I guess I am old) I only had one smallpox shot and three polio shots. (The sugar ones came along the year after I finished my series.) But those yearly typhoid booster shots went on, and on, and on. People reminded me how lucky I was to have those wonderful vaccinations.

I was paranoid. Right after I got a typhoid shot, I started dreading the next one and built up a year's worth of fear. My cousin loved to pick on me. He was studying to be a doctor and should have been more humane, but he pulled out a needle one time and chased me into a corner of the house and laughed at me as I went ballistic.

I got brave enough to look at the needle when I was a high school graduate and had to have a blood test. I fainted.

But I conquered the fear (with a lot of divine help) and can watch the nurse draw blood without even flinching. After all these years, I still feel proud as a pumpkin, too!