Yesterday, I got some good news at the doctor’s office: my blood pressure is finally sitting in a safe and stable range.
Apparently, this is what medical professionals call “an opportunity.”
Because before I could fully enjoy my tiny cardiovascular victory lap, my doctor gently pivoted into, “Well, since you’re here…”
And somehow I found myself agreeing to not one, not two, but THREE separate vaccine shots covering five different diseases.
Rubella. Hepatitis A. Hepatitis B. Plus booster protection for measles and mumps because apparently they’re part of the rubella vaccine. More immunity for me. I guess.
The doctor and nurse both assured me the odds of feeling sick afterward were low.
“But if you do,” they said cheerfully, “just take a Tylenol.”
Easy for them to say.
At the moment, it is currently three hours past my normal wake-up time and I feel like my brain has been replaced with warm pudding. My limbs weigh approximately four thousand pounds. Movement feels ambitious. Thinking feels aspirational.
Honestly, this must be what it feels like when your phone battery drops so low it goes into “low power mode.”
So today’s post is going to be short (if not exactly sweet) because I fully intend to drag myself back to bed immediately after I publish it.
Still, as lousy as I feel right now, I'm eternally grateful to medical science for making these chronic and deadly diseases less chronic and less deadly. Anti-vaxxers and vaccine skeptics are far more dangerous in my book than any side effect.
Anyway, if I disappear for the rest of the day, assume I’m either sleeping or noodling on why my immune system has decided to punish me as a side effect of a few helpful injections.
Science may be beautiful. But it can also kick your ass.
Keep calm and get vaccinated!
Clint 🌈✌️
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY
05-29 = Beatrice Lillie (1894-1989) = Canadian-English actor and singer 🌈
05-29 = Gene Robinson (1947- ) = American Episcopalian bishop 🌈
05-29 = Laverne Cox (1972- ) = American actor activist 🌈
05-29 = Melissa Etheridge (1961- ) = American singer-songwriter 🌈
05-29 = Nancy Cárdenas (1954- ) = Mexican actor, writer, and activist 🌈
05-29 = Rupert Everett (1959- ) = English actor and novelist 🌈
MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY
“Actors make bad lovers. Their most important kiss is for the camera. Not in a superficial way, in a really deep way. They can only give everything if they know someone is going to shout cut!”
Rupert Everett