Back to see the travel doctor again today. Andres is much better, so the doctor was happy to give him his immunisations.
Although Andres has been a bit nervous since he understands what an immunisation involves, we’ve tried to minimise the fuss and fear by talking to him a lot about it.
We also promised that we would go out and do something nice together afterwards – which he proudly proclaimed to everyone meant going out for icecream!
One thing that has helped a lot is a little Pixi book “Elmo goes to the Doctor”, which discusses Elmo needing to visit the doctor to have a checkup and a “shot” (we substituted the word “immunisation” whenever we read the book). The book is nice and short and deals with the concept of visiting the doctor even if you don’t feel sick (ie for a checkup), and also that immunisations hurt, but only for a second. It also discusses that you don’t need to get an immunisation every time you go to visit the doctor.
So when we got to the doctor, Andres was quite calm, although a little nervous – he sat on my lap, I hugged him close and the doctor gave him two injections in the arm, one after the other. He flinched a bit for the second one when he knew what was coming, but he didn’t cry or complain at all – not even a peep out of him!
The doctor was very impressed with how brave he was and told him he was a very good patient.
He actually had three immunisations – Hep A and Typhoid (mixed together), plus Yellow Fever (which is required for travel to South America).
We celebrated by going to the new Ben & Jerry’s store at the Concourse in Chatswood, Andres and I shared a large cup of icecream with three scoops in it – it was very yummy!
Lovely photograph.