Playing Doctor

Today Elliot had his 3 year exam. While the good news is that he's healthy and doing all the things he should at his age, it could have gone better.

He was hesitant from the moment we got to the door, but went in despite his trepidations. He didn't want to go back to the exam room, and once we were there his anxiety just continued to grow. He didn't want the nurse to listen to his heart, didn't want the doctor to come near him. I got a little reprimand (in the form of helpful advice) for not having prepared him well for the visit. We are now the proud owners of a Doctor's Tools Playset.

We made it through the Dr. part of the visit, but when she left, he wanted to go with her. I'm sure he remembered what happened last year after she left, and I'm sure it was the source of the anxiety. Unfortunately they were running a little slow today and he had to wait 5 minutes between the Dr. leaving and the nurse coming back for shots. He started out just whining a bit, but by 3 minutes into waiting he was full on crying, and by the time the nurse opened the door he'd thrown himself on the floor and was full on shrieking.

Good times.

I had to hold him down for the shots, but ultimately I don't think it was as bad as he thought because when she left, he seemed to be looking in her tray for another shot (or maybe another bandaid). We went out to the waiting room, and instead of leaving he rushed back down the hall to the exam room. I was trying not to make it more traumatic than it had been, so I tried to let him leave calmly of his own accord, but he flat out refused.

So I carried him, screaming and protesting, *out* of the doctor's office...

We got home and spent a few minutes checking temperatures, blood pressure, and heartbeats with the new MD kit. He's pretty insistent that the eye/ear checker is a hammer made to forcibly drive the bandaid down into your flesh, so yeah, the familiarizing with medical equipment is going great so far.