Vax Redux
Last fall Kim and I were very diligent about getting all vaccinations that were being advised for people of our age by the CDC. We had the latest COVID booster. We had our regular annual flu vaccination. We got the pneumonia vaccination. We also got the RSV vaccination so that we wouldn’t catch one of those nasty deep lung infections. They checked the status of our shingles vaccinations, but we had gotten that done in two-part harmony not so long ago so we were covered on shingles. Since we were in the vaccination mode and because we were headed to SE Asia in a few months, we got updates on tetanus and typhoid, but opted out of yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis. One of the notions I recall reading about was that there was a bit of strategy required on the timing for many of the respiratory vaccinations since the earlier you get them in the season, the more protected you are sooner, but also, the less protected you are in the later part of winter and spring. We thought about it all and opted for more protection sooner and to worry less about the springtime.
So here we are in the spring and as we have returned from the recent spring break trip with the granddaughters and sure enough, I have come down with some form of cold symptoms starting with a sore throat and now graduating to more general congestion. I can’t remember the last time I got these symptoms, but I suspect it was before 2023. I don’t really get sick very often, and certainly much less than Kim does in general. Both our friends Mike and Melisa came back from SE Asia with respiratory infections (a.k.a. Colds) where I sailed through with no sniffles. So, now I am paying the price, but so far it is a fairly mild price. To begin with, this is not a busy week for me and I have no future travel plans for another six weeks, so I have plenty of time to rest and recuperate. While I had an interview for another new case, I actually have very little work on my plate at this moment, so I really am able to just kick back and heal myself. And the weather has turned sunny and mild as well, so I can even get my fresh air while I relax. There is nothing to get in my way of getting better quickly except for whatever my immune system decides to do.
Recently I have been caught up in the Netflix series The Resident that has six seasons in the can. It is like any other hospital series, in this case focused mostly on the ER and surgery suites. It is especially focused on the diagnostic genius of one resident, who learned his craft on the battlefield of Afghanistan. In the same way that watching many seasons of Call the Midwife a few years ago gave me more visual affirmation about the childbirth process, The Resident, has given me more open-cavity blood and gore than I have ever been exposed to before. But last night there was a show about a guy who needed a lung transplant. The problem was that he was a Joe Rogan type podcaster who had made his influencer reputation by being an anti-Vaxer. He is told by the rule-bound (but also unimpressed) medical team that he does not qualify as a transplant recipient because of his unwillingness to get vaccinated. This sends him and his surrogate wife into a fit of indignity. Then, when he starts to have a medical emergency, before he is revived, he tells the doctor that he is, indeed, already vaccinated. When his wife hears this and reminds him that his advocacy of the stupid anti-vax stance had almost cost their son’s life the prior year and put the wife in harms way as well, the wife becomes livid and leaves him flat in the hospital room. While he is momentarily non-plused and gives her the heave-ho, he then learns that not having a support system equally disqualifies him for a transplant. There is something poetic in this for all of us who dutifully believe in the personal and societal value of being vaccinated.
We all thought a lot about vaccinations during the time of COVID and I’m guessing that we all knew some active anti-Vaxers in those days. It was all a very big deal as it tends to become in the midst of some high-risk pandemic. I grew up unaware of the Spanish Flu of 1918, but VERY aware of the polio scourge in the 1950’s that caused us all to get Salk and Sabin vaccinations to fend off this debilitating disease that put otherwise robust young people into comas or iron lungs. Polio is now a disease of the past. When I was young, we all had dime-sized scars on our shoulders from our youthful small pox vaccinations. Those never went away and served as reminders of our cultural belief in the importance of vaccinations. Those vaccinations stopped in 1972 for all the right reasons, the world had rid itself of small pox because of the ubiquitous vaccination programs. It seems anathema to me that anyone would find vaccinations to be anything but a good thing at both the individual and societal levels. But the anti-Vax crazies continue to exist and exist in rather large numbers. They all seem like conspiracy theorists, but I’m sure there are some sensible people among them that have more rather than less valid reasons for their beliefs.
For my part, I am in favor of doing anything and everything to stave off illness, even simple colds, which I consider to be very annoying. If I were able to get COVID, flu and anti-cold vaccinations every three or four months to insure not getting sick (as much as any vaccination can do that), I would line up for that program. I have never met a vaccination I haven’t liked. And, I don’t recall ever having an adverse effect from any vaccination I received, at least not beyond a minimal soreness in the upper arm for a day.
But here I sit, after two days of what I hope will be no more than a week of cold symptoms. I have wondered if I should take a COVID test, but I can’t think of a reason these days to do that. I’ve had COVID twice and the symptoms were always very mild and disappeared after a few days. I never took any of the palliatives for COVID under advisement from my physician who said I should only take them if the symptoms got bad, which they never did. I will do what I always do when I have a cold and what I did again last night. I will take NyQuil, the best medicine ever invented. It allows me to sleep and I’m astute enough in the ways of medicine to know that the best medicine for any illness is getting a good night’s sleep. If I need to go somewhere during the day, I have DayQuil, but I rarely use that since all it seems to do is dry me out.
Last evening, while we were watching TV, Kim asked me if something was wrong. Apparently, she found my vacant stare into space somewhat disconcerting. There was nothing wrong. I was just in a bit of a fog thanks to this cold. My head felt like it was packed with cotton balls at that moment. As you can tell, I am not a very good patient, probably because I don’t get sick very often. This morning, we seem to be getting a jump on June Gloom and there is a fog in the air to complement the ongoing fog in my head. I only slept about six hours last night, which would normally be just enough, but with a cold weighing me down, I’m guessing there is a mid-morning and a mid-afternoon nap in my future. I will do what I always do, assume my vacant, droopy-eyed stare and think of how good it will feel when this too chooses to pass as it always does. In the meantime, I will wonder when I can get another vaccination to keep this shit from getting to me again.