An Embarrassing Childhood Experience

I made myself a laughing stock in Primary Four thirty years ago. One morning after recess, a team of health personnel came to my school to give all pupils free Dengue vaccinations. The sight of the white-clad men and women toting their tools and equipment into the the school's resource room gave almost everyone in my class the heebie-jeebies. Despite our form teacher's repeated reassurance that the pain caused by a single inoculation would be as slight as an ant bite, many tough boys and tough girls that I had known of grimaced and squealed in apprehension. Having a low pain threshold, I could not help shaking from head to toes. An overpowering sense of dread and foreboding washed over me. I had ever been bitten by fire ants before and the vicious pain was no joke. While waiting for our turn to have the injections, I kept thumbing through my Chinese textbook over and over again in a futile effort to calm myself down.

Many minutes slipped by. A school prefect walked into our classroom and told us to be ready for the vaccinations. All of us erupted in groans. Having hushed us and made us stand in a single file according to the alphabetical order of our names, Mdm Chai(our form teacher) escorted us out of the classroom towards the resource room. Our long queue of fifty-five pupils spanned two classrooms from the front door of the makeshift injection room . I stood in the middle of the line, feeling like a criminal going to the gallows. A short, heavy-set nurse was waiting for us at the door with our name list in her hand. Her job was to call us one by one into the room. Every time she called out a pupil's name in her stentorian voice, there would be gasps of panic rising from the front of our line. It did not take long for each pupil to be injected. I exchanged fretful looks with a boy behind me whenever we saw one after another of our friends exiting the room. They all pressed a spirit-drenched cotton ball on the injected area of their right upper arms with their left hands, dragging their seemingly tired body back to our classroom.

As I was busy counting the gradually-shrinking number of pupils before me, a chirpy womanish voice rang out from behind me . I looked over my shoulder and saw a female teacher talking to Manzhou, the boy who stood at my back.

" Are you afraid, ManZhou?" asked the teacher. She was Miss Chiew, a young and bubbly temporary teacher who taught us Civic Education. She liked telling us shopworn jokes.

"A little, Miss." answered ManZhou. He was wiping beaded sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm. It was quite hot that day, without a breath of wind. The air reeked of body odours.

"What makes you afraid, ManZhou?" the teacher went on, smiling.

"I'm scared that the needle may not be clean," Manzhou was looking up at Miss Chiew. " It could have germs."

" The syringe is clean, don't worry." The teacher patted his back.

"How clean is it, teacher?" I chimed in. I could not contain my curiosity.

Miss. Chew tipped her head slightly towards me, her hand fiddling with a red pen before answering:

" Every needle is sterilized over a fire."


The mention of the word fire shocked the bejeebers out of me!


Did the nurses have bunsen burners with them in the resource room? How would it be like to have a hot needle shot into my deltoid? I felt like crying. Were the Dengue epidemics in Malaysia really so bad that everyone must have the injection? Could I say no to it?


Time tiptoed past without notice. I found myself no longer standing in the middle. I was moving closer and closer to the fat nurse at the door with fifteen to twenty restless classmates behind me along the corridor . My breathing became rapid. The cacophony of my friends' chatters pained my ears. By the time I came face to face with the nurse, I knew my most feared moment had come. I was sure I blanched when the nurse called out my name.

Stepping into the resource room, I roved my eyes around every corner timorously. Several male medical assistants and female nurses were stacking piles and piles of injection kits on a long table. A wave of panic surged deep in the pit of my stomach. My legs buckled and I staggered backwards. Sensing my uneasiness, a fair-complexioned woman whom I gathered as a staff nurse came up to me and said, "Calm down, Xiaodidi(little kid). There's nothing scary about the injection." She took my hand in hers and led me gently to the equipment-laden table. Her words did not take the edge off my fear though. To me, every thing in the room smacked of doom. I would be injected by a fire-sterilized needle and suffering great pain!

The staff nurse told a young nurse to administer my injection. I saw her taking out a syringe and a small bottle of fluid from a kit. She uncapped the bottle and inserted the syringe into it. The fluid was drawn into the syringe as she retracted the plunger with her deft hands. After doing this, she turned to me, holding the syringe in one hand and a spirit-soaked cotton ball in the other and said, "Pull up your sleeve, boy. I am going to inject you." I drew a deep breath and cast a frightened look at the syringe. The light of the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling glinted off the needle tip, making it appear even more menacing. Reluctantly, I did what I was told. The nurse dabbed the wet cotton ball on my arm and said, "Relax, don't get yourself tensed up."

Unable to suppress my fear any more, I shouted no at the top of my lungs and shook her hand off my shoulder. I made a headlong rush to the open door but a tall, quick-reacting male medical assistant was able to get there from the opposite direction before I did. He blocked the way out with his outstretched arms and commanded me to get back to the astonished nurse in a stern voice. I wheeled round and almost bumped into the body of the staff nurse. I pushed her aside with all my might and ran towards the closed back door. However, a Malay nurse in a white headscarf flung herself forward and grabbed my left hand. She berated me for being disobedient while dragging me to the table. I resisted furiously and managed to wrench my hand out of her grip. I ran around the room with four to five men and women chasing after me. Our noise had attracted many pupils to press their faces against the windows. They were laughing and cheering. Nobody cared to stay in their line.

My attempt to escape came to an end when a male medical assistant caught hold of my shoulders. Despite my struggle, he lifted me up effortlessly and put me down on a chair as if I were weightless. The others quickly surrounded me in a tight circle. There was no way I could run away from them again. I buried my face in my hands and burst out crying.

The staff nurse stooped down and curled her arms around me.She tapped the small of my back lightly and whispered in my ear, " Don't cry. We will not cause you harm." Her motherly voice and hug had a gentle calming effect on me. I gradually settled into a quiet sob. She wiped my tear-streaked face with a soft piece of tissue paper and stroked my ruffled hair smooth.When I sobbed no more, she filled a plastic cup with water and passed it to me. I finished it in two gulps. The nurse smiled. "Are you feeling okay now?" she asked.

"Yes," my voice wavered as I answered.

"What makes you so afraid to receive the injection?"

" I --don't -- want to be --injected by a fire-sterilized needle," I stuttered.

"Who told you so?" The nurse's eyes widened in surprise. "There's no such thing." Her colleagues exchanged looks and grinned.

I did not answer. I bowed my head down again. Miss Chiew had told me that!

"We use disposable needles. They are hygienic and convenient to use," the nurse explained patiently.

"So the needle won't be hot?" I asked doubtfully, raising my eyes to meet hers.

"No, it won't" she nodded reassuringly."Are you ready to receive the injection now?"

'Uhhhh...." I hesitated.

" Don't hem and haw. Dengue fever is spreading very fast recently and many kids have been infected and admitted to hospitals. Your life will be safer if you have the injection. Do you see how important it is to you?" advised the concerned nurse.

I nodded my understanding . Obediently, I let the staff nurse inject me. The injection was not as painful as what I had expected. It felt like a pinch for only a second. Guilt and shame were creeping up on me. What a chaos I had caused in the resource room. I remember apologizing to the staff nurse and her coworkers. When I came out of the room, many pupils were pointing and laughing at me. My form teacher gave me some scolding. Miss Chiew shook her head at me. A few other teachers described me as silly. But I was too emotionally-spent to be bothered.

Honestly speaking, I still have an antipathy towards injections.