Being line-free has more advantages than I can quickly catalog here, but it also has one definitive drawback: needles.

Malabsorption necessitates frequent blood draws to monitor vitamin levels, hydration, liver enzymes and a plethora of other things. Depending on what else is going on with his health, L has had monthly, biweekly, weekly or occasionally even daily labs since he was born. However, with the exception of a brief stretch in the summer of 2014, L has also had a line of some sort his entire life. That means that we have had the good fortune (can we really call it that?) to have been able to draw his labs through his line, needle- and pain-free. Because we were, erm, between doctors for several of those line-free weeks in 2014, he has had a grand total of one traditional blood draw in his entire life, at around 15 months old when he was too young to remember.

Until today.

I was nervous, heading into our appointment today. I have friends with kids – small children, far too young to be so brave – who are so accustomed to needles that they chatter and giggle through labs. There are others, though, many others, who have been so traumatized by extensive poking and prodding that they require sedation for even the simplest blood draw. L does well when we explain to him well ahead of time what’s coming, and for a 3.5-year-old he is very receptive to being reasoned with, so I hoped I could employ some of the tactics we have long used to talk him through dressing changes; but, thanks to regular dressing changes, he also panics when we so much as pull tape off his skin. I felt as though an awful lot of weight was riding on how I managed this first needle.

In the empty waiting room, we made a game of squeezing together into each of the extra wide chairs. As the panicked screams of another poor little soul rose ever-louder from the back, I amplified my laughter in a futile attempt to mask what awaited him.

Finally, it was our turn. “I’m scared,” he whispered.

“I know, buddy. But remember what we talked about? I’ll be with you the whole time, and it’ll just be a little pinch and then it will be all done.”

The phlebotomist led us to the back, and L climbed up into her giant chair unprompted. He was immediately taken with the perpetual motion toys on her desk (Dory! A pterodactyl!), and perked right up when I offered the holy grail of distraction: YouTube toy review videos (curse you, Ryan’s mom, but in times like these I am grateful for every shrill unboxing. And by times like these I mean blood draws, 5 am, and when I just want to pee in peace for once, dammit).

As she pulled out the needle, I was irrationally taken aback that there was no warm up, no sleight of hand. All of a sudden, there was a big shiny needle just staring at us. “All right, here we go,” she said. “Just a little pinch.”

I braced myself to hold him down, as I’ve had to do far too many times before, but he gave only the slightest whimper when the needle went in, and another small whimper when it came out. He watched like a hawk as she wrapped his arm in coban – red, because she had heard him say red was his favorite color as we watched the blood flow into the syringe.

He turned to me, and I held my breath, waiting for his words.

“Mama.”

His little voice was very stern.

“That pinch made a HOLE.”

“Yes, buddy, it did. I suppose I should have said it would be a poke instead of a pinch. But it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be, was it?”

“Yes, it was! It was exactly as bad as I thought it would be –”

My mind raced to come up with exactly the right words to steer him back in the right direction. But there was no need:

“Can I have more stickers?!”