Darius exploring the clinic

Yesterday morning, Catherine and I brought Darius down to our neighbouring clinic for his MMR vaccination. We have been holding his vaccination back a little as Catherine had been busy with her projects previously. With fever a likely complication for this vaccination, we decided to only bring him for it when Catherine had cleared her projects so she could devote the time to look after him then.

Even before we entered the consultation room, we were still undecided if we were to take the MMR or MMRV option. The latter is a combined jab containing measles, mumps, rubella and the additional chickenpox vaccine. The advantage of doing a combined jab would be a total of less injections needed to be performed Darius but the leading complications (i.e. fever) could be more adverse.

We raised our concerns to the doctor and he shared his opinions with us: Costs wise, both options were relatively the same. Also, only two jabs instead of three would need to be taken if the MMRV option is chosen (note: new directives require 2 jabs for Chickenpox vaccination instead of 1 for better effectiveness), and Darius will be able to skip his MMR booster when he is in Primary 1. Well, I wouldn’t want him to be ‘blaming’ us later on when he realised that unlike some of his peers, he couldn’t skip the injection then. Furthermore, since he should not remember much on going through the pain via these injections at this age, I’d rather he goes through them when he’s young.

So with our decision for the combined jab made, the doctor proceeded to ‘warm up’ Darius by tapping on his ‘Ground Zero’ repeatedly, probably to numb the sensation at his injection point? Prior to that, he was examining Darius’ upper arms before deciding that his thigh area was a more suitable site for the injection. It appears that since the MMR vaccination is to be done near the surface of the skin, the area of injection has to have sufficient flesh, and Darius’ thighs fit the bill. Also, I’ve heard that injections performed on the thighs are less painful than on the arms so I certainly welcomed the doctor’s decision. ^^

Busy playing with his toy phone, Darius only let out a short squeak when the injection took place. Almost immediately after, he resumed to his playing of the toy, nonchalant of what had just taken place. All three of us (Catherine, the doctor and I) were quite surprised at his pain tolerance and the doctor even complimented on his bravery. I’m glad to know that Darius is unlike me when it comes to pain tolerance. ^^|

Darius acted like nothing had happened after the injection

Relieved that the vaccination was finally done, we decided to take a walk around the neighbourhood. According to the doctor, symptoms of Darius’ reaction to the vaccination (i.e. fever) should only appear in 5 days to a week’s time so we shouldn’t be expecting anything for now.

We came across this newly renovated playground and were impressed by its size and variety of amenities available. It even has mini rock-climbing structures for the kids. We spent some time having fun here with Darius.

Nice neighbourhood playground

Darius in his usual self ^^

Been a while since I took a photo with Darius...

Darius appeared to be in a very good mood, probably because he got to play and run around with us as we headed towards the nearest MRT station for some grocery shopping.

Meanwhile, we are hoping that his upcoming reaction to the vaccination will be minimal. *fingers crossed*

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