At five years old, I entered the doctor’s room for the first time. Over the years, I would become very familiar with this doctor’s room. But at five years old, it was just another small, cold, concrete cell with a rigid piece of padding that I was expected to sit on and wait for the doctor.

When my mother was a child, she said the doctors tested for allergies by injecting chemicals into the backs of children and watching for allergic reactions.

“What if the reaction was so bad that the child died?”

“The doctors had vaccines ready on hand to be used if the reaction was bad,” she said. But I heard her hesitation.

At the time when I was five years old, they were still testing kids for allergies by sticking a bunch of needles in their backs. But the allergies they were testing for weren’t the same allergies my mother had been tested for. When I went into the doctor’s room at five years old, I wasn’t tested for whether or not peanut butter made my throat closed up, or if sunflowers made my nose itchy. No, I was being tested for illnesses and diseases like ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and BM. There was a formal name for BM that no one could remember, and it was better known on the street as Blabber Mouth.

The doctor entered the room, and asked me to take off my shirt and lie belly down on the hard padding. He was talking to my mom about what they would be testing me for. He spoke in a loud, obnoxious voice.

“There are roughly thirty-five diseases we’ll be testing for today. Not all of them need an individual shot, they are grouped together so that we’re not administering thirty-five different injections at the same time.”

“Oh, okay.” My mom’s voice was small, like a mouse.


The doctor spoke as an egret might, with his nose held high and his eyes open wide, like he was the best doctor in the world and everybody knew it. “Now, there are a few other illnesses we will be probing for as well…”

Small nurses in white lab coats walked into the room and crowded around the bed, making it impossible for me to see my mom or hear what the doctor was saying to her. They asked me to take off my shirt, and then they cleaned my naked back with cool wipes, their gloved hands lifting and rearranging my arms as though I were a wooden doll they were in the process of assembling.

I heard the pop of a needle being opened, and I buried my head in the pillow, not wanting to feel the jab of the needle into my soft flesh. I was only five years old. I had not yet been accustomed to the feeling of ten different needles being pushed into my body at the same time. I was still only so young.

A nurse rubbed my back one last time, and then she put the first needle in.

I screamed.


She quickly pulled the needle out and tried to calm me down, but I pushed her away, jumped off the bed, and ran out the door. At least, I attempted to. One of the nurses grabbed me again and pushed me back onto the bed. They took hold of my ankles and forced my feet to straighten. They held down my arms so I couldn’t grab at their faces. They put a sharp pressure on the small of my back, just enough to make me feel like if I moved even an inch I would break my entire backbone, and one of the nurses slowly, slowly, gave me all the shots.

I was silent.

When all was said and done, the nurses wiped down my back and left the room. The doctor sat down on a stool and started talking to me again.

“Hi there! Those nurses are very good at what they do. You are very lucky.”


Very. Lucky. I left my head in the pillow. I wouldn’t look at the doctor. I didn’t want to see his face.

“You can just lie there on the bed for a little while, the test results should be clear in a few minutes, and then the nurses will be back in to take the readings.”

He was still smiling at me.

“We had a few complications earlier, didn’t we?” He turned to my mom. “The minor outbreak that took place earlier in our meeting is another indicator of possible disease.”

“Oh, really?” She spoke softly.

“Oh yes,” he continued in a loud voice. “I’m afraid your daughter has traces of ISB. We are unable to test for those directly with a chemical injection, but it usually appears at a very young age.”

“I’m sorry, what is ISB?”

“Insubordination. Yes, it’s very common in younger children. Most will grow out of it in a few years. Some, however, do not, and they usually become Problem Cases.”