It was a sunny morning on the first of October when I sat taking notes in a Kaiser doctor’s office in Carson while my wife and her surgeon reviewed the post-op do’s and don’ts. Nothing over ten pounds for six weeks. No blood-thinning ibuprofen during that time. She could sleep on her side but not her stomach. She could lift her arms over her head. In a week, she would want vitamin E oil for the affected areas. In about a month, silicone scar cream.
Eventually the conversation drifted from post-op recovery to their shared interest in child-rearing. My wife is a middle-school health and language arts teacher; the doctor has a one-year-old and a three-year-old and is currently serving a life sentence in the maximum-security wing of parenting.
I grew antsy.
A week earlier, I had missed my opportunity to get a drive-through flu shot, and at nearly sixty-five I don’t like missing my shots. Vaccinations have become another maintenance item, like rotating the tires or changing the furnace filter. Ignore the schedule long enough and something expensive starts coughing.
I excused myself, received the blessing of my wife and her doctor, and took the elevator down to Floor One, where I found the vaccine station. I filled out a form, assured everyone that vaccines did not cause me to transform into Mr. Hyde, and sat beside a friendly nurse in her early thirties.
“You’re okay with Pfizer?” she asked.
“What are my other choices?”
“None.”
“Then don’t offer me Diet Pepsi when there’s only Diet Coke.”
She laughed.
The shot burned like hell. It burned even more after the needle came out, but I maintained my dignity, thanked the nurse, and returned to Floor Three, where my wife was waiting in the post-op area.
I told her about the burning.
“Did you get a flu shot?” she asked.
I nodded. Of course I had. I had gone to the flu-shot station she had pointed out earlier.
“Sounds like you got a COVID shot.”
“She did say it was Pfizer.”
“That’s COVID, dude.”
There are moments when a single sentence rearranges reality.
We returned to the vaccine station, and sure enough, sitting there in plain sight were two stacks of forms: one for flu and one for COVID.
I was a car that needed unleaded and had somehow filled itself with diesel.
Since I was already there—and apparently collecting vaccines like G-Shocks—I decided I might as well get the flu shot too, this time in the opposite arm.
I rolled up my sleeve.
“Flex or relax?”
“Relax,” the nurse said, “or you’ll be sorry.”
This seemed like excellent advice for vaccines, aging, and perhaps life in general.
I relaxed.
I thanked her for both shots and returned to my wife, who reminded me that the last COVID vaccine had turned me into a basket case for about twenty-four hours. This was unfortunate timing. She was recovering from surgery and needed me functioning at something approaching full capacity, not wandering around the house shivering beneath a blanket and announcing that death was imminent.
I promised that when we got home, I would take three ibuprofen and a nap and prepare myself for whatever punishment my immune system had scheduled for the next twenty-four hours.
Perhaps I should be grateful. Through a combination of diligence, confusion, and poor signage comprehension, I had knocked out two vaccines in one visit. My shingles vaccinations had been completed six months earlier. Now COVID and flu were checked off the list.
At nearly sixty-five, you begin to appreciate these small victories. Retirement is approaching, bringing with it enough disruptions, anxieties, medical appointments, identity crises, and mysterious bodily developments without influenza, shingles, or COVID joining the welcoming committee.
So perhaps I’m ready.
We shall see.
Meanwhile, I’m eager to tear off these damn Band-Aids.
Leave a comment