Ouch!

(This is an old photo and has nothing to do with the rest of the post except that I took a shot and I like puns.)

I got a flu shot.  Despite the fact that I got it in Pediatrics, I just got a plain old bandaid.  I didn’t even have a tantrum.  Also, apparently when one is a grown up, one has to buy one’s own after-shot treats.

I didn’t intend to get a flu shot.  While I believe in vaccines for many things, flu seems slightly different.  I am not a scientist or a doctor and so my thoughts perhaps lack a certain amount of validity, but they are my own.  Stop reading if you so desire!

Flu comes in strains, slightly different manifestations each time.  If what I remember is correct, this year’s flu vaccine represents last year’s best guess about what kind of flu may be going around now.  What I got shot full of may or may not work on what I might be exposed to.

Not that I’m all that worried about getting the flu.  I’m a reasonably healthy person.  I am not elderly (yet) or under 12 (despite my behavior) or afflicted with a disease that would make flu dangerous for me.  I tend to think less medicine, less intervention, is better.  I feel like my personal survival ability is enhanced by, well, surviving things.

But there I was at Kaiser because T. is sick with something that is probably some kind of cold.  While we were there, his doctor pointed out that he needed several more vaccinations.  Since he was getting shots anyway, he got a flu shot.  Since I was there, too, I also got one.

Now I am not a danger to the community, at least not in that way.