Needles in Arms

Bleeding dog is gone, the floor is no longer spotted with red, and I can finally breathe again. Oh, wait. Scratch that. I can't move my arms because I got a boatload of immunizations today. I feel kind of like I did when I was a baby and got mumps, rubella, measles, etc. At least, I think I do. I can't really remember that far back. Maybe I'm already starting to lose my memory. Who knows?

So, yesterday I booked an appointment for a booster shot of Tetanus and Diphtheria. I was happy to get in this morning. Well... as happy as one can be to get a needle. Anyway, I wasn't up for the booster for another two years yet, but apparently Germany's got bad luck with Whooping Cough. Okay, not bad luck. They don't immunize for it, so everyone gets it. And so I was advised by the needle-happy military medical system to go ahead and get my Td early, so I could get TdaP instead. Super. Except I saw my third military needle-giver today (I've been getting other rounds of shots, too). And, like the other two before him, he demanded why I don't have any immunizations. Exasperatedly, I told him they were in Canada, and I'd try to get them if the health authorities hadn't already tossed them. So, he settled and told me I should be getting a slew of other injections that I hadn't already had, all the while threatening me with more needles, should the kind folks back home not have saved my records.

I shouldn't make it sound all bad. I was actually planning to get the Hep A vaccine one of these days anyway. But that day wasn't supposed to be today. As a 1.0 mL shot in the same arm as my TdaP. Why didn't the Hep A go in the other arm, you ask? Because the other arm had already got a hefty dose of a one-time-never-worry-about-being-a-freshman-in-a-dorm-and-having-brain-swelling meningitis vaccine. Cool.

Now I can barely move my arms enough to take on and off the sweater I'm wearing, because it's that terrible in-between temperature where you can't decide if it's hot or cold. Right on.

I hope you'll excuse me so I can go get excited for my trip to France, now! (That happens in about a week and a half, thankyouverymuch.)