The Needle-Prick of Fear as Realization Sets In

Last year, my wife and sons and I were having dinner in a family-style restaurant when 6-year-old Isaac asked to go to the bathroom. I let him go alone, and this small event set off an ordeal that went on for months.

My wife sent me to check on him. When I came in, Isaac said, from inside the stall and in an annoyed tone of voice, “I found a needle in here and it stuck me.”

My responding question, of course, was, “What kind of needle is it?” Followed without pause by, “Let me in.”

Upon seeing the syringe in the stall, a vision of the slow and painful death of my son went through my mind along with everything I knew about AIDS.

He told us he had found the capped syringe on top of the toilet paper dispenser.

Naturally, being 6, he picked it up.

Understanding the basic principle behind a tube and plunger device, he first attempted to blow the cap off with air pressure. Unsuccessful in that, he had pulled the cap off manually, and when putting it back on again, poked the needle through the side of the cap and into his finger.

At the table, my wife asked me why I let such a little boy go to a public restroom by himself. Well, I have no viable excuse for such parentally irresponsible behavior. My explanation is that I thought Isaac was thoroughly versed on public restroom procedures and precautions. I thought wrong.

While I had cautioned about abduction and abuse and hand washing, it never occurred to me that a used hypodermic needle could be a concern.

In his short lifetime, Isaac has been stuck with such a needle for almost a dozen immunizations, every one of which was presented in a life-saving light. How could he have known that outside the doctor’s office, the same sort of needle could be deadly?

We could have told him, that’s how. We could have made that point clear at one or all of his previous immunizations.

After spending the whole of the next day either on the phone with doctors, nurses and infectious disease centers or waiting for them to call us back, my wife and I learned a great deal about needle sticks and infectious diseases.

We learned that whatever damage had been done, had been done. It happened when the needle punctured the skin.

We learned that the biggest risk our son was running was not HIV infection, but hepatitis B. (Hepatitis A is not transmitted by blood.) It is an extremely hearty virus that can survive for months outside the body. But there is an effective hepatitis B immune globulin a person can take within 24 hours of exposure, and a three-step vaccine process as well.

In contrast, the human immunodeficiency virus is extremely fragile. It cannot survive more than a few minutes outside any body. So even if the unknown person who left the needle in this restaurant restroom was indeed HIV-positive, the chance of passing it on in this way would be slim.

We told ourselves also that in this case, the unknown person was more likely a diabetic who needed insulin before eating. Someone out of his home routine who forgot to properly dispose of his spent needle. Someone less likely than a drug user to be HIV-positive or have hepatitis.

We started Isaac on the three-shot series of hepatitis B vaccine and had a blood test taken the next day. He has since completed the vaccine series. A follow-up blood test has revealed that the hepatitis vaccine is working, and six months later we were reassured that there is no trace of HIV antibodies in his bloodstream. There is no known incidence of HIV antibodies appearing any later than six months after an exposure.

And so, at this point, we take comfort in the fact that the odds are with us. The chance of my son contracting anything but understanding from his experience is very, very small. I only wish I had given him that understanding before he was put at risk at all.