I Guess it’s About Time I Get my First Flu Shot

By Tom Anselm

Okay, raise your hand if you’ve been sick in the last week, live with a person who is sneezing and hacking their ever-loving head off, or have just felt like poop lately.

Now, everyone, you can put your hand downs, and rest a bit. After all, “rest is best,” according to Daniel Tiger of PBS fame.

I mean, it’s only the first of November and already nearly everyone I talk to fits the above category.

I have had this stupid gunk going on for two weeks along with two rounds of antibiotics. And still I am subjecting my poor wife Jill to the slings and arrows of me hacking my nasal passages out. It is better lately, as I feel I can breathe without aid of Vapo rub or eucalyptus oil swabs, and I might be so bold to list my condition as ‘95%’ to the good.

And this is after a visit to the local urgent care (genius, whoever thought of this concept…pure genius) for a chest x-ray that turned out negative. Yay me.

So what is going on here? Is this a harbinger of things to come for the cold and flu season? Does this mean I must finally break down and get a flu shot? Yeah, that’s right, I have never done that. But then we’re dealing here with the guy who’d never gotten a colonoscopy until last year, and that was without anesthesia. (I think I told you about that once before. Fun times . . . ha.)

Therefore, in the interest of being a good citizen and person of common sense, finally, I will be getting stuck at the local pharmacy or grocery store in the near future. Here are some statistics to back up that long-time-coming but wise decision.

It seems that most indicators indicate that the indication is for another lousy flu season in our parts. Last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control (I always thought there was just one) only 37% of adults in this good ol’ US of A got the flu shot. Nationally, over 80,000 people died of this malady last year alone, the worst in 40 years. That is nearly the number of people who attend 8 baseball games in Tampa Bay. Okay, that was supposed to be funny. Ha.

But seriously, oldsters seem to have a harder time fighting flu, so being one of them, I will be Mr. Smart-Flu-Shot-Getter very shortly. And as a public service, I am recommending this action for all who read this, from 9 to 90, and passing on this caveat to that poor sap who is snotting his/her way through whatever he/she may be suffering at present.

The common fallacy, at least according to that CDC again, is that people think you can get the flu from the vaccine. “Nonsense,” say they. I never got “shot” for the same reason I didn’t do the colon flush . . . I thought I would be the .00044% guy who has an adverse effect from the procedure. NOW, however, I am coming to my senses to see that the other adverse effect, namely “The Dirt Nap”, far outweighs whatever other risks there may be.

And so, as I swing into the landing approach for my big

7-0, and see that wrinkled, bald-headed guy looking back at me each morning when I brush my teeth, I am telling myself to take the plunge, or at least the plunge of the needle.

All I ask of the plunger is, please be gentle with this plungee. I’ve already had a crazy-bruised left forearm from popping an elbow bursa a couple of months ago.

Oh well, life goes on.

At least, let’s hope so.

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