Needles are feared by many people in society, including up to 10% of the adult population. Children, in particular, share a common dislike of needles, often responding to them with significant objection along with screaming and in some cases, utter despair. So, it isn’t any wonder that taking children for their 4 year old needles is not high up there on a parent’s making-memorable-moments lists.
When my youngest, Penny, was 4 weeks old, she developed a sudden onset left side facial paralysis. We took her to hospital as soon as we realised what was going on and were told she would need to undergo tests to determine what was causing it. They weren’t sure if she was having a stroke or whether she had a tumour or if it was Bell’s Palsy.
On the night she was admitted I watched on, sobbing as the doctors spent over 20 minutes holding Penny down, trying to insert a cannula into her arm. You see, she was well in every other way and was putting up such a fight that they kept missing the vein and having to retry it as she squirmed around under them.
