Shots, Etc!

Probably the question we're asked most often after we tell people we're going to Rwanda (Footnote 1) is "did you have to get shots?"  Yes, we absolutely had to get shots.  I am now the most innoculated person you know.  Tetanus?  Check.  Polio?  Check.  Yellow Fever?  Check.  Hepatitis?  How many hepatitises you want?  Cause I got em all.  I've even got enough cool hallucinogenic malaria pills to have my very own Bonnaroo.  This is no problem for me, and as you can tell, I'm a little proud of it.  If you've got a syringe with a little fatal disease in it, bring it on-- I'm game.

My wife doesn't exactly share my enthusiasm.

For as long as I've known her (and from what I'm told, much longer than that) Ellen has suffered from a relatively severe case of blood-injury-injection phobia. (2)  This is a problem, since we need to get the aforementioned variety pack of shots before we head overseas.  On this trip, we fully intend to interact with both silverback gorillas and genocidal murderers.  I'm pretty sure Ellen was more anxious about the nurses with needles.

If you didn't know it, shots are expensive.  Like hundreds of dollars per person expensive.  I didn't know this until I started looking around.  A friend told us that some people he knew went to a place called Shots, Etc! (the exclamation point is mine-- it just seems fitting) to get their vaccinations.  So I checked it out.  Turns out that we could save about $90 by going to Shots, Etc! (mine again) instead of going to the incredibly unappealingly named Vanderbilt Travel Clinic.  Well, Ben Franklin once wrote When it comes to potentially life-saving vaccinations, a penny saved is a penny earned! and he's a founding father.  And I'm a damn patriot. 

So it was off to Shots, Etc! which has a very nice storefront between a Subway and a Chinese Buffet. (3) Surprisingly, there was a line.  "Other adventurers?"  I pondered as we signed in.  All was going well with the paperwork, and we waited patiently in the designated waiting area. (4)  By this point, Ellen had turned noticeably inward, more focused on a game of cell phone solitaire than anyone really has ever been.

I took her soli-zen moment as an opportunity to lean in to the friendly counter nurse.  "I don't know if you could tell," I whispered, "but my wife has a bit of a phobia.  The quicker this all happens, the better."

"Oh, ok-- no problem," she smiled knowingly.  We were officially in cahoots, she and I.

Moments later, as Ellen's solitaire game approached nirvana, we heard an outburst from the back room. (5) "Owww-- that really hurts!  Wow!  I can't believe how much that hurt!  Oh my god!  I mean, I expected it to hurt, but wow!"  So much for nirvana.  Cahoots girl stuck her head through the window.  "Oh-- don't worry-- she isn't getting what you're getting."

I had hoped that was the case, because whatever she got injected with (5 again) looked less like a vaccination and more like a quart of cherry Kool-Aid.  "What was that?" I asked cahoots girl.  Since we were in cahoots, she dispensed with any sort of HIPAA formalities.  "It's a LIPO shot."  Ellen returned to the material world.  "A LIPO shot?"

"Yeah, a fat-burning shot."

"Does it work?" I asked.

"Oh yeah."

"Wow." 

So it turns out the line wasn't full of adventurers.  Unless you qualify injecting yourself weekly with an ambiguous fruit drink in a desperate attempt to lose weight as an adventure.  But now it was my turn.  I went around the counter to the back room by myself.  

I made noisy conversation with the non-cahoots nurse who gave me my vaccinations.  She was very pretty and very nice, and gave a totally reasonable explanation as to how a nurse ends up working in a strip mall injecting Jungle Juice into middle aged desperadoes.  In between loud, harmless banter, I stealthily brought her into cahoots.  The CIA calls it turning a mark.  "I think the best thing," I whispered, "would be if you set up all the shots and had everything ready so that when my wife comes back here, it can all happen really fast."

Cahoots 2 was a pro.  I'm sure Ellen was wondering on the other side of the wall what was taking so long,  but when I finally came out to get her, everything was ready.  I led her around to the viewing injecting area and sat her down.  Immediately, both cahoots girls rolled up Ellen's sleeves as she tensed.  They then proceeded to vaccinate her from both sides simultaneously and with SEAL Team Six precision-- 2 quick shots in one arm, 1 in the other.  Geronimo.

Relieved and a little dazed, Ellen let me lead her out of Shots, Etc!  Cherry Limeade from Sonic was the promised reward, and so it was delivered.

One emotional and psychological hurdle surpassed; many, many more, I'm sure, to come.

Notes:
(1) By "asked" I mean verbally asked.  I'm not including the incredulous "I'm pretty sure everyone got murdered there.  Didn't everyone get murdered there?" questions that most people scream with their eyes.
(2) It's real.  The usually bright-eyed, cheery, reasonable person that is my bride can be reduced to a quivering ball of anxiety by the mere suggestion of a shot.  She can tell you rationally one minute that she knows it's stupid, and it just feels like a bee sting, and it's no big deal at all, and it just takes a second, etc etc, and then, the next minute, she has tears in her eyes.  There's no explanation.
(3) They also have pizza and chicken nuggets.
(4) "Waiting room" would be a stretch-- think tableless chairs next to windows in an inappropriately small ice cream shop.
(5) By "back room," I mean "totally visible area behind the counter where the injections took place in front of everybody."