Check all the boxes that apply

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Partner and I got our flu shots very early this season. We’re both older, and I’d just been diagnosed with cancer, so we agreed that it was probably a good idea for the two of us not to get the flu this autumn/winter.

CVS (and many other pharmacies) offer flu shots for free (for those of us lucky enough to have health insurance). They have a cute little kids’-tea-party table and chairs set up behind a screen in the back of the store; you fill out a form, check a few boxes, and then the pharmacist gives you a little tiny jab. (Usually it’s administered by Alexander, the handsome Russian pharmacist. We were disappointed this year because he wasn’t available, but the on-duty person was a lovely funny person, and she was almost as good as Alexander.)

The form was routine:

ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO LATEX? (No.)

ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO EGGS? (No.)

DO YOU HAVE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS:

·        HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE? (Yes, a little.)

·        HIGH CHOLESTEROL? (Certainement pas.)

·        DIABETES? (No.)

·        KIDNEY DISEASE? (Are kidney stones the same thing? Maybe a little. Okay, then I’ll say ‘yes,’ and explain if necessary.)

And then:

DO YOU HAVE CANCER?

I stared at the question as if it were written in Hebrew. “What am I supposed to say?” I hissed to Partner.

He glanced over at my form. “I think the answer in your case is ‘Yes,’” he said calmly.

Reader, I cannot tell you how difficult it was for me to check that box.

It got a little easier after that. ARE YOU ON MEDICATION FOR CANCER? (Not yet.)

And I gulped and gave the form to the pharmacist, and she glanced at it and gave me my shot.

So – you see? That wasn’t so difficult.

It’s just the idea, that’s all. “Cancer” is a hard word to say out loud, especially when you're talking about yourself. But, believe it or not, it gets easier to say.

Cancer is just a stupid condition, after all, like high blood pressure and kidney stones. It’s treatable. In a few months, I’ll be better, I hope.

And I’ll be around next year to have another flu shot.

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Get a flu shot!

 

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I have had the flu at least four times in my life.

 

 

The first time was when I was probably seven or eight.  I barely remember it; I do remember that it lasted a long time, and that I spent a long time in bed, and I did crafts at home with felt and glitter and Styrofoam.

 

 

The second time was around 1977, in college.  Everyone had it, and we were all bedridden and miserable and had a horrible cough.  The college dispensary gave out big bottles of bright green syrupy cough medicine with codeine, which at least allowed us to sleep.

 

 

The third time was in Tunisia, while I was in the Peace Corps.  I slept on the sofa for days, with our housecat breathing sardines in my face, and I was so miserable that I didn’t even care.

 

 

The fourth time was in the early 1990s, while working at my current job.  I passed out in my office, I remember that.  I spent at least a week at home, and I was barely able to crawl from room to room.  After the flu, I ended up with a case of walking pneumonia that lasted several months.

 

 

I have not, however, gotten the flu since I began getting a yearly inoculation.  And thank Buddha for that.

 

 

People think that the flu is a bad cold.  It is not a bad cold.  It is a very serious illness.  It killed my great-uncle Dewey, for one.

 

 

So, kids, get your little flu shot today.

 

 

Poor little frail weak Uncle Loren isn't sure if he can live through a fifth bout of the flu, and he certainly doesn’t want to be exposed to more viruses than absolutely necessary.

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