It was Annamarie. I am putting the blame squarely at my wife’s feet.
I guess I will have to start at the beginning….
A couple of weeks ago my wife went to urgent care for a follow up to a work injury. I went into the room with her, and at the end of the visit, the Dr asked if she’d had a flu shot yet. She hadn’t and they gave her one. The nurse asked me if I had been given mine. I said no, and in she walks with mine. (Hence, this is all my wife’s fault. See my logic?)
Fast forward three days. I wake up at 12:30 am on a Tuesday morning. Fever, chills, coughing my ass off, and all the life drained out of my body. I’ve had this before. This is the flu. How could this be possible… I had the flu shot.
Ok. Let’s break for a moment and just have a little conversation about that. EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU GO TO THE DOCTOR in the wintertime, they incessantly bug you to get vaccinated for the flu. Thy are pretty aggressive. My response is usually, “no thanks, don’t need the flu. Makes me sick every time.” Well, that’s like pouring holy water on a demon. You immediately get stink eye and rolling eyes and a froth starts to form on the edge of their lips and they snarl…. “it is impossible to get the flu from a flu shot!” And they site all the benefits and perils of not getting vaccinated.
Over the years I usually snap back a few times and say “well, I systematically get sick every single time”, or some such nonsense, which amps them up even more, and it’s fun, yeah but over the years I guess they’ve worn me down… I don’t say much any more and just figure that they need my co-pays down the road when I have to come back for antibiotics. Corvettes are expensive.
Did I say that? Yes, I did. OK. So back to the story…
So that day, right after work I called into my doctor. “Yes doc, I’ve got my annual winter cold…bla bla bla.” He prescribes a few things, tells me to take a decongestant, etc.
Well, it gets worse by the day. We’re pretty active folks, my wife and I, and we’re out and about I’m working full time then attending to my web business – which is also thriving right now… needless to say I’m getting weaker and weaker.
So a week later, I go into the hospital and get seen. Right out of the chute, “Mr. Terry, you have pneumonia”. Wait.. how did that happen. Then he said something so earth shattering and time stopping that I have written this whole story to get to……. ready for this?
“Mr. Terry, did you get a flu shot about 10 days ago?” “Yeah, why?” “Well, about 90 percent of the people in the lobby are here for flu shot related chest colds. Yours got really severe.” I said, “Wait, I thought it’s physically impossible to get the flu from the shot???” He said, well, not exactly. I then told him that I was worried for his life. I told him that I was pretty sure he broke all medical code by being truthful and if he’s not careful he might disappear like Jimmy Hoffa!
Needless to say he was not amused. But I did get treated, I’m on the proper meds now, and am on the road to recovery.
And the moral of this tale, dear readers, is I’ve had my last flu shot. The truth is out.
