My kids have been spiked a lot recently (aged 3 and 1) and they’re able to handle it like a boss. I don’t really remember getting them before high school (but I obviously did) but I remember getting them then and the bravado and namecalling that occurred during them.
The BDG (tuberculosis) one was the biggest laugh - all the previous higher up years are making us shit ourselves. Today walk in the park in the end.
The Diptheria/Polio one (with the tongue drop and sugar cube) was a mess. We weren’t told it was happening, but rumblings of some folk that had friends who went to the Catholic school suggested we knew something was up. We got changed for PE and then headed to the assembly hall before getting the jags and then being sent on a 5km cross country run. What a palaver. Was well dialled up (@anon44830896’s finest there).
Any horror stories? We had one kid who passed the BCG skin test and didn’t need the vaccination, so obviously the neds decided they were “gay” and their “gayness” was repelling the TB. Man, high school was terrible wasn’t it.
When I needed injections during primary school, my mum would buy me a present from the newsagent for being brave. They were always craft presents. Hence I’ve a strong association between vaccinations and a plastic sew-your-own-photo-frame kit.
I didn’t need the bcg as my skin test was reactive.
when they were doing the skin tests, we were all a bit scared, but it was such a relief to discover it wasn’t sore, and we were back at our desks in no time. Then however, delayed shock must have set in, and wee Alan ‘Flung an epi’*. It was the first time I had ever witnessed anybody collapsing like a sack of spuds and it still chills me to think about it. He cracked his head off a desk as he went down. we were all told to put our heads on our desks and pray while the teacher flapped about trying to revive him.
*exactly how big Alan (no relation of wee alan) described it. He only fainted, no epilepsy or fitting was involved.
My wee trooper is brilliant with his jags. We took him for his chicken pox vax just before xmas and the pharmacist said ‘that wean’s the least bothered I’ve ever seen’. If only the same could be said for his behaviour at home.
My daughter, who is 3, apparently flinched on her left arm, which was the second one, without making a sound - and that tightening of the muscle’s apparently caused it to bruise pretty badly this morning. She shouted as I came in the door last night “daddy I was brave and I got a brave doctor sticker from the doctor today and I am brave!” all in one breath.