Flu Shot

SHOTS SHOTS SHOTSSHOTSSHOTS, SHOTS SHOTS SHOTSSHOTSSHOTS, SHOTS SHOTS SHOTSSHOTSSHOTS,SHOTS!  ERRRRRRRYBOOOODDDDYYYYYYGetYourFluShotBecauseI'mScaredOfAContagion-likePandemic.  Alright, thank you, goodbye.

For the second year in a row, I went to get my Flu shot.  Alli, one of my best friends from college-cum-Unknowing Primary Care Physician, OK'd me getting the shot.  And like Dr. Oz, I’ll believe anything medical-sounding that comes out of her mouth.

I was simply curious.

For those of you who don’t know me (For real?  Are there people I don’t know reading this?  Wild.), I’m a huge hypochondriac.  Cough?  Lung cancer.  Headache?  Brain Hemorrhage.  Pain in my right ring finger?  Glomus tumor.  Well, that one actually happened.  I would like to say that after an extensive google search, I self-diagnosed a Glomus tumor under my nail.  Then after my full body MRI(For real.  I asked the technician if he could just check out anything else that may look “iffy”) the doctor pulled up the SAME google image search I previously found, declaring it was a Glomus!  HA, WHO GETS THE LAST LAUGH NOW, PEOPLE WHO THINK I’M A CRAZY HYPOCHONDRIAC?  I ACTUALLY HAVE A TUMOR!  It was a teeny, tiny, tumor in my fingertip.  Benign.  And for some reason I had to be put fully under for the surgery… That was actually decided during my first appointment—

Me: So you’ll just do local anesthesia on the hand, and take it out?

(Beat)

Doc: Well, after meeting you… I think it would be best if we just put you all the way out.

See?

When I woke up after the surgery the first thing I asked was why my throat was in pain.  “Oh, that’s because you were intubated.”  Again.  A teeny, tiny, tumor surgery.

My teeny, tiny, fingertip cast.  Real thing.  Real life.

So last week after work, I strolled over to the neighborhood CVS and went to the pharmacy.

Me: Hello, I’d like to get a flu shot.

Pharmacist: OK, just fill out these forms.  Can I see an ID and Insurance Card?

I handed him both.

Pharmacist (after unnecessary amounts of typing): So the vaccine isn’t covered by your current plan.  It’s going to be $31.50.

Me: OK (Reaching for my wallet).

Pharmacist: You know, you can probably go to your Primary Care Physician and get it for free.

(Beat as I thought about it.)

Me: Yeah, but I’d first have to FIND a Primary Care Physician (Does my pediatrician count?  I wonder if she’s still alive…), and then take time off work, which includes the travel cost to and from the office and the staff already resents me because I took a week vacation back in April when I had TOLD my boss(mother) that I already had this vacation before starting my job.  All of that plus the actual time off work not completing my tasks will end up costing the company... priced out it would definitely be more than $31.50.

I guess I took something away from AP Econ.  Probably an incorrect usage of cost/benefit analysis, but something.  Senior year of high school, I would use cost/benefit hypotheticals to get out of chores.  One parent would yell: “JENI?  You need to take Moose out!”  I’d be in my room, ACT book open, as well as ~10 AIM windows.  “OK, but I’m studying.  And I’m getting to the essay questions, and if I leave now, I may not come back to these questions because it’s a timed practice test, and if I don’t practice these questions and one of them is on the exam, then I may miss that point, and if I miss that point—“ “FINE.  I’LL TAKE HIM OUT.”  What a lil brat I wasssssiiissssss...?  Moose was a 5 pound Maltese, and “taking him out” meant going to the basement, opening the sliding glass door, having him pop out onto the fenced 3x3 ft Astroturf square, wait for him to “do his stuff” as we called it, and then letting him back in.

The Pharmacist looked at me, most likely thinking “Why didn’t she keep that in her mind?”  He rang me up, and I was then told to wait for a few minutes while everything was set up.  A few minutes passed.

“Miss Binbom?  She’ll help you now.”  You wouldn't believe how often the “R” becomes silent in my last name.  I looked around, confused.  Who?  Where was the onsite doctor?  Should I be heading towards the medical suite?  Am I looking for someone holding a bucket of Betadyne?  No.  The Pharmacist pointed to a co-worker who was standing next to a chair.  A chair that was sitting in the middle of the pharmacy area.  I mean, people coughing in my face while looking for NyQuil, middle.  People waiting in line to pick up prescriptions using it as a place to rest their bags, middle.  Holding someone’s spot at the register, middle.

Well, this seemed not at all sanitary.  I hesitantly put down my bag and took a seat on the ominously stained cushion.  The woman administering the shot lay her instruments down on the chair next to me.  Her carrier looked more like a tray used in a back alley nail salon than medical grade equipment   As I took off my sweater, I noticed that she doused her hands in hand sanitizer before putting on the gloves from a box that looked like it was wedged between the Kleenexes and sweaty shinguard in the back of a mom’s minivan.  Good.  Glad to see that she's taking precautionary measures when it comes to needles and blood.  She sloppily swabbed the spot as someone’s gym bag knocked into my head.

Pharmacist 2: “OK, One… Two…”

Me: “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Pharmacist 2: “Three.”

And the shot was done -- NO WAIT, NO, NO, THAT BURNING SENSATION SPREADING IN YOUR ARM IS THE ACTUAL VACCINE BEING INJECTED INTO THE MUSCLE.  OK, now it’s done.

She looked through her caboodle to try and locate some sort of covering for the micro-wound.  “Can I get some cotton balls?”  She attempted to take the back off the Band-Aid with her gloved fingers, touching every part of it in the process.  “Cotton balls?!”  An employee walked over with a bag of already opened cotton balls, presumably from aisle 3.  She reached in and grabbed one with her gloved hand.  Just because YOU are gloved, doesn’t mean the 2 year old cotton balls that were somehow taken from under my bathroom sink are clean.  She wiped the trickle of blood from my arm, and plopped on the Band-Aid.  “All done.”  Yes.  And at this point I can only assume my general health is, as well.

UPDATE: I’m alive.  The day after the shot I had very mild flu symptoms, which I obviously treated like the full-blown flu -- bombing my bod with every type of fever-reducer and Vitamin-C product.

What should you take away from this cautionary tale?  BYOBalls, I guess.