Reader, I Did Get My Flu Shot

“I’ve been deathly afraid of shots since early childhood, when my uncle, Dr. Jeff Newton Webb, of Seneca, South Carolina, who loathed little children (and, now, I do see his point, on occasion), used to chase me around (and out) of his house holding one of those old-fashioned, steel syringes, the kind that resembles an antique bug sprayer. (Well, they looked that big to me in the late 1950s.)” Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

Ruminant With A View

By Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

TEANECK New Jersey—(Weekly Hubris)—11/11/2013—If phobias were structures, my fear of needles would resemble Sichuan Province’s 1.7-million-square-meter New Century Global Center, which has its own beach, and an artificial sun.

I’ve been deathly afraid of shots since early childhood, when my uncle, Dr. Jeff Newton Webb, of Seneca, South Carolina, who loathed little children (and, now, I do see his point, on occasion), used to chase me around (and out) of his house holding one of those old-fashioned, steel syringes, the kind that resembles an antique bug sprayer. (Well, they looked that big to me in the late 1950s.)

If you want to see some of the antediluvian things he toted around Oconee County in his big black medical bag, have a look at http://www.thegarret.org.uk/collectionsyringes.htm. As far as I was concerned, my favorite aunt, Willie Sue, had married Boris Karloff, and I had to behave when I came to visit, which meant I spent most of my time across the street in the park with Mamie, but that’s a story for another time.

Willie Sue was a brittle diabetic, so syringes were a given in her life, as international travel, and endless inoculations, were in my own, from a very early age. But, due to Dr. Webb’s terrorizing of me, I cannot remember getting a shot—well up to the age of 30—when I did not run, faint dead away, yell, or do all three.

I still have to “work up to it.” At 62. Today, I sat in the Bergenfield, New Jersey Walgreens parking lot for about 45 minutes, summoning up the courage to go in.

Apparently, I still neither act nor look my age, for a delightful young man at the photo counter told me that I had no need to fear at all. “Duane,” the pharmacist, he said, could give me a nasal flu vaccine instead of a shot.

At this age, I permit myself to describe young men as being cute as buttons, and Randy Astengo, identified as a Walgreens “Shift Floor Leader,” is as cute as a button.

He also either believes I am 49, or lies through his perfect, cute-as-a-button teeth because, when I finished my victory dance (pumping the air, jumping up and down, silently shouting, “Yes!” all the way back to Pharmacy), Duane (Dr. Duane Rogers) balanced the phone on his white-jacketed shoulder and, looking at me levelly, said, “Yes, if you’re under 49, you can have the nasal vaccine but, if not, no: it’s a live virus, and can cause reactions in older people . . . . When’s your birthday?”

“9.13.51.” Drat. The numbers were out of my mouth before I could axe 13 years off. Drat!

“You won’t feel it,” said Duane. “I’m realllllly good at this.”

“Oh yes,” chimed in a very young Indian-American pharmacist (Merlin: you cannot make this stuff up) at his left elbow, with obvious glee. “Duane is goooood.”

I felt like a small, ancient fish in a big, bright barrel at this point, with Randy, Duane, and Merlin grinning down at me.

How can I describe Duane to you, you who will never experience one of the many, many things he obviously gets paid to do all day long, day in and day out: con people? I wondered, idly, if he played poker.

Duane looks like one of my smart Spartanburg cousins: conservative, tucked-in, high-three-digit IQ cleverly disguised by dead-pan facial expressions, not at all what he appears. They’re all good at poker, my cousins. Poker and golf and not quite telling the truth.

“Did you practice on oranges?” I asked Duane.

“Well, yes,” he said, still cradling the phone, waiting for some doctor, somewhere, to come back to him. “I’ve been practicing since I was a little kid.”

“Since you were a little kid?! Oh, well, that’s really reassuring,” I said. “You’ve been sticking needles in people for fun since childhood! Just the man I need.”

Duane was speaking to a physician once more. He paused, cutting ironic blue eyes back at me; grinning.

“My husband’s having major surgery in two weeks,” I blurted. “I have to get this damned shot. I can’t risk infecting him, but I cannot, cannot tell you what I’m likely to do when you stick me . . .”

“. . . but you love your husband,” said Duane, very quietly.

“Well, I’m not at all sure any more,” I said, remembering Dr. Webb’s bug sprayers.

Duane changed tack, as though accustomed to dealing with tiny children. “Let’s not call it a flu shot, shall we? Let’s say we’re going to . . . introduce you to immunity.”

“Right,” I said, with conviction, biting the steel bullet. “I’m going to go sit down. Over there. And wait for you.”

Duane went on furiously filling prescriptions, while Merlin chirped across and behind and around him, “He really is talented. It’s a gift. You won’t feel it at all.”

My hands, by this time, were the temperature of oysters on half-shells, I was dry-hacking with an allergy I do not have, and the very elderly gentleman seated next to me was observing me with alarm.

“Needle phobia,” I explained. He was sympathetic, if bemused.

“Won’t be a minute,” said Merlin.

Yet another case of Duane’s duplicity. Some ten minutes elapsed. I went over and stuck my head round the “Drop Off” window. “Ever hear of anticipatory anxiety,” I asked.

Duane grinned, showing not one tooth, and moved off into the stacks of drugs. I could hear him, like the Ghost of Christmas Past, from the bright depths. “Let’s see. Where is my most enormous needle? Heavens, this thing is huge!”

“S’what all the guys say,” I muttered lamely from my chair.

“Oh, Boy, is this ever going to hurt!” he announced, still from a distance.

And then, he was just standing there, beside me. “Come on,” he said, templing his fingers. “We do our very worst . . . in the stock room!”

“Great,” I said. “Of all the Walgreens in all the towns of New Jersey, and I end up with the Steve Martin of pharmacists.”

I followed him, Gentle Readers. I followed.

I sat down in an anodyne plastic chair, and Duane told me he has developed an entire, unique methodology of giving injections. “Oh,” I said, I’ll bet your kids—you do have kids?—just love that.” I was pointedly not watching the proceedings by this point.

“Well, yes, I do have kids. I have no idea how they happened, but I have five,” said Duane.

“You didn’t . . .” I said. “You didn’t name any of them ‘Duane,’ did you?”

“No,” he giggled. “You know, I love my parents to pieces, but I would not do that to a child. But shots are another matter . . . Now, what I usually do,” he continued, taking my arm, “is count to five, and then give the shot. So, here we go: 1, 2, 3 . . .”

And then . . . he gently placed a Band-aid on my arm.

He’d had me, literally, at 1.

I suppose there’s no need for me to tell you that I’m dragging my equally, let’s say “shot-stubborn spouse” in to see Duane tomorrow morning. Not a moment too soon, if Dean’s surgery’s on November 20th.

And I wish I could rent big fat vans to ferry other needle-phobes over to 406 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield. Because what Duane (and Randy and Merlin, by extension) participated in today was an errand of great mercy, the sort that professionals in the frantic, pre-holiday, flu-smitten northeast have little time for these days.

He took the time to be utterly and unreservedly compassionate, and brought, thus, great honor to his profession.

Bless you, Dr. Duane Rogers, you cunning, subtle son-of-a-gun.