Night Shots
By Donald Jones
The Navy orderly stood over me with the large needle at least six inches long. He laughed as he saw the terror in my eyes and said “You’re next, little fellow.” Fear electrified my body as I screamed, jumped over the bed rail, and crawled under the bed. Nightmares are those things that we have but seldom remember. Most all dreams fade in time. The memories that we wish were only dreams are the ones that still haunt us. This one is still as fresh as yesterday.
Born in 1945 with Spina Bifida, a rare birth defect, had left me with a incontinent bladder and bowels. Doctors examined me in hopes of discovering some way to get my body to work properly. Which accounts for why this nightmare was developing.
As a five year old, I was able to let out a very annoying scream. The orderly realized he had started something he could not finish. He tried to get me to come out from under the bed, but I crawled further out of his reach. There was an opening at one end of the bed that gave me a clear run down the rows of beds to the nurses station. If I reached the station then maybe a nurse would help me, I thought. I made a mad dash out of the rows of beds into the nurses station. It was empty, she was gone. I crawled under a fluoroscope machine that I had seen earlier that day. A nurse had taken me into the nurses station to show me how it worked, and to make me feel at home while they were doing test on me. The orderly had me cornered. He would soon be able to get to me. Just as he was reaching for my arm, the head nurse who had come running, after hearing all the commotion, said, “What in hell are you doing to that kid?“
The orderly was caught. He tried to lie out of his situation and blame me for being an over emotional child. He could have gotten away with it except, I told the nurse about the giant needle he had in his pill cart.
“He said he was going to stick me with it”, I said between hysterical crying. He did not think far enough ahead to get rid of the irrigation syringe. He was caught red handed and promptly put on report. That was the end of his job on that floor.
The next morning, in the children’s wing of the Norfolk Virginia Navy hospital, I had been scheduled for an examination, which required putting me to sleep. In those days, before ether was administered, you got a shot. After the night before, the suggestion of getting a shot put me into hysterics. That was the beginning a day from hell for me. The sight of a needle sent me over the edge. It took six nurses to give me that shot. One on each limb, one to keep my body from moving, and one to give the shot. They spanked me afterwards because I made them all mad.
Watching someone get a shot brings back bad memories that I can’t shake. Whenever someone wants to tell me about their medical experiences, shots they have had to take, or trips to the dentist, I go pale and must get away from them. When I went to the delivery room where our first child was going to be born, I almost passed out and had to leave the room and stick my face into the water fountain. After reading the opening prologue of Jaws I felt my knees go weak and my face get flush. I had to put it back on the shelf. Going to the dentist is almost unbearable. Fortunately I have found a kind dentist that I would recommend to the most traumatized patient