Betrayal PPO

Emily was four and super excited to be going to Kindergarten. She had attended preschool, but saw Kindergarten as "real" school and perhaps for the first time in her life, eagerly climbed into the car ahead of her brother and sister to go visit Dr. Jones for the back to school check up. And she knew there would be shots.

After the pokes and prods and shots, she was given a clean bill of health and Dr. Jones signed her form.

"The only thing left is the new mandatory lead test. Just take this order down to the lab and they'll draw a bit of blood and you should be all set!"

Didn't seem as if it would be a huge deal. Neither of the other two had to get this done, but it seemed straightforward enough. So, we gathered our things and headed down the stairs to the lab.

We were only in the waiting room a couple of minutes when Emily was called back. I remember being encouraged by this. Stupid, stupid Mom.

When we got back to the very tiny little room that I'm certain was orginally designed as a closet, Em got very nervous. She couldn't help but to fixate on all of the tubes and needles and gauzes. I could see the dread building. This was bad. Very bad.

I tried to be bright and encouraging, but soon was told that Dr. Jones' office had sent down an order for Isabella instead of Em, so we would have to wait until they sent down a new order. Great. They obviously did not work with small children very often. Give the kid more time to stare at the collection of blood tools. That's going to work out awesome.

Long story short, by the time the needle atually hit her arm, Emily was a mess. She wailed so loudly that I'm sure I could have rented her out for Middle Eastern funerals. When ALL THREE tubes of blood were drawn and she was sporting her pink camo bandage, the unit secretary was right there with a huge box of stickers and suckers and stuff. Em was sniffling but sorting through it, taking the opportunity to gaffle herself quite the little collection.

The secretary was pleased with her impact on Emily's mood, and said to her "see, that wasn't so bad, huh?"

Emily looked up from the box with a mixture of anger, disbelief and disdain.

"What?? That hurt like HELL!"

She was permitted to select several more stickers...