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Then, there was this time...
When I was in the doctor’s office for a pre-college physical, and he decided based on my records that I was due for tetanus and pertussis vaccinations. The nurse came in with the readied sharp and told me that “this is the tetanus shot”, and gave it to me in my arm (don’t remember which arm).

Then, another nurse came in with a readied sharp and told me “this is the tetanus shot”, and I immediately told her that I had already been given a tetanus shot by the other nurse. The ‘new’ nurse replied, “Oh, no—I’m pretty sure that was the pertussis vaccine; let me go double-check,” and left the room. I could hear her talking to the first nurse, but did not hear what they were saying to each other. The second nurse then reentered the room with her sharp and said, “She said that she gave you a pertussis vaccine; THIS is the tetanus vaccine,” and she gave it to me in my other arm. Well, I trusted that they knew who gave what vaccine—were being careful about it, so I put it out of my mind.

It wasn’t ten minutes out of the office before I started feeling fairly poorly, so when my mother and I got in the car I decided to let her drive instead, and she needed to go to the grocery store anyway. While I was following her around, I noticed that I was feeling increasingly more ill with every step. When I remarked this problem to her, she curtailed her shopping trip and we bought what we had in the cart and headed home.

By that early evening, I became extremely ill with fever, chills, body aches, and my jaw became very painful and stiff (it basically locked). I could not open my mouth.

While my mother tended to me (with my dad looking in periodically), she told me that a best friend from church had called her and told her that the Lord had revealed to her that someone in my mother’s family would become very ill very suddenly, but they would recover. I believe her dear friend also sent a card saying the very same thing, and mom put it on the nightstand next to me so I could see and read it.

I did recover, but yes it took me about a week to do so. When my mind had cleared enough from being so sick, and I had “put two and two together” and realized that I had received TWO tetanus vaccinations per the overwhelming evidence at hand, I contacted the doctor’s office and asked to speak to him. I was as usual passed over to the on-call nurse, who as you know screens the patient’s inquiries before putting them before the doctor. But I know for a fact that since my question was as to whether I was possibly given TWO tetanus vaccinations per the symptoms/illness I had suffered, it had set off a monumental scrambling among the two nurses for instructions and likely calls by the doctor to attorneys. They weren’t going to admit to ANYTHING, my friend...

In just one call (as most involve a call-back), I was told emphatically they did NOT give me two tetanus shots, but rather that I had apparently had a “strong immune reaction” to the tetanus vaccine. In all, they absolutely would not admit that they had screwed up big-time (and could have killed me!).

With that, I inquired as to whether an allergy specialist could test to see if I was allergic to the components of the tetanus vaccine. The doctor said he did not know, leaning more toward ‘didn’t know if it would confirm anything’.

SO...you have GOT to keep a hard bead on what is going on when you are being given vaccinations!

This year, the doctor retired and the nurses likely did the same—or maybe went elsewhere. The doctor there now is a young woman who my parents very much like.

Should I have sued?
Yes.
But as the start of first semester of my freshman year of college loomed large, I dedicated my energies toward that, and I had a fairly chunky course load to start with.