Post 900: Chicken Pox, Me?

I. Want. This. Sign. Period.  Isn't it wonderful?

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Whats going with Cookie today:

Well yesterday I got a letter from my doctor confirming that I have had chicken pox in my life time.  Let me clarify this. I went to our new doctor in Baltimore and looked over Cookie's medical records and saw that I have never had any childhood diseases.

Really, said the doctor?

Really.  My mother's idea of giving me love was to make sure that I was stabbed by every doctor and  vaccinated against everything that I could catch.  But evidently, I never got the gay vaccine because I have my cravings for dick.

Really, said the doctor, who is terribly handsome.

Really, I says.

Well what about Chicken Pox?  They didn't have a vaccine back then.

He had me there.

I told him for my entire cognizant life, and I don't remember much before the age of five except for the BIG events, like my father beating the crap out of my mother and the police arriving nightly to get him under control, and I would have remember chicken pox.  At least I would have had a scar or two, right?

I also told him that according to my mother, I never had it as a baby, toddler and on up.  HOWEVER, two weeks after bringing me home from the hospital, my two brothers came down with it, and within two weeks after that, my father came down with it.  My mother had it as a child, so she skipped the fun and got trapped taking care of three guys and a colicky baby, that would have been me.

I also told him that the last time I was around anyone who broke out in chicken pox was about four years ago when the children of friends bloomed at about 3AM - three hours after we left their house after playing cards with a group of friends.

So the doctor said this called for at least a blood test, because chicken pox at my age would be really bad, but that shingles - and there isn't any kind of increase in shingles going around, you just hear about it because the availability of the vaccine - was pure torture.

"If you had it as a newborn, it could have just been a slight fever..." he surmised.

BUT because I know of five people from high school who have had come down with shingles - one guy had his outbreak around his left eye and lost his vision for six months - I saw the doctors point.  So we did a blood test and low and behold, I tested positive for the virus.

I went to the doctor again today and we talked it through and he said that new born status had probably saved me from a full-blown outbreak, still my immunity is down for the herpes virus that causes it, and that's when shingles can break out.  "This is why old people get shingles.  The virus lays dormant, you immunity declines over the years and when the Herpes sees its chance it breaks out."

So we did the shot for good measure. And this mother fucker is a live virus injection!  And expensive!  Thank God for the husband and good insurance.

An hour into it and so far the only side effect is a headache of sorts, but nothing like the fever, aches and pains that one can get from this if things go wrong.

But in all seriousness, if you haven't had chicken pox, get tested.  This is one thing that you can do to love yourself and save yourself from a great deal of misery.  And if you haven't, they have a vaccine for it.