I hate needles.

Always have. Always will. I have a cartoon-like response to being approached with a syringe.

But I’m also an adult and I have learned that, like death and taxes, needles are an unavoidable part of the deal. There are flu shots. My doctor will periodically want a blood test. There has been the occasional IV. I close my eyes, hold my breath and resign myself to getting it done fast.

My fear and loathing has never really been justified. I have survived everything from a tuberculosis test to an epidural none the worse for wear.

My son has inherited my apprehension, unfortunately. I had hoped that he would be immune to it as he spent his crucial early years watching his father take daily finger sticks to check blood sugar, and carefully draw up insulin for self- administered injections taken with a matter-of-fact lack of fuss.

The nurses in his doctor’s office can attest to the fact that, instead, my kid panics at the thought of a needle, much less an actual one coming toward him. So he was thrilled when he heard that none of the various vaccines now approved for covid-19 have been cleared for children. Yet.

It is the yet in part that made me swallow my personal loathing and take the first appointment available when I qualified for the vaccine. It was also with more than a little exhaustion. I miss pre- pandemic life and if two shots are my part in getting from here to there, break out the alcohol swab and let’s get going.

According to Bloomberg, 108 million shots have been given worldwide since December. In the U.S., the number is 35 million. The most recent census figures put the American population at more than 330 million, about a quarter of which is underage, so there are about 258 million people to vaccinate to battle back against the pandemic.

Two percent of Pennsylvanians are fully vaccinated and 7.5% have had at least one shot. It’s a start, but there’s still a long way to go.

I am just one person, and I have done my duty with the social distancing and the isolating and mask wearing. But I am also one person who has asthma. I’m also obese. Both put me at risk of the deadly end of covid if I contract it. That might seem like it just affects me, but it doesn’t.

My son also has asthma and, after my husband’s death, we only have each other. I took the shot for him. Because he will eventually need the shot too, I acted like I didn’t care about the needle. I emphasized that, like my mask, the shot is as much for other people as for myself.

And that is true.

If I got sick, I might need to be hospitalized. The decisions that put me in that emergency room or ICU might put any number of nurses or doctors or orderlies or janitors in contact with me, risking their lives. They might take my virus home to a parent or a child. I might take up the bed or the ventilator that could help someone else.

While contact tracing has been a watchword of the last year, we can only trace the contacts we remember and those are doubtless a fraction of the whole. What we don’t remember, — or sometimes don’t realize — is how every decision we make can leave a mark, fracturing what might have been and leading to a different outcome.

I don’t like needles, but I can live with that anxiety.

What I can’t live with is the idea that if I didn’t get the shot, my son or my mother, my neighbor or a total stranger, someone I love or someone I don’t like even a little could get sick and suffer and maybe even die. Because of me.

And in the end, it really didn’t hurt at all.

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