A cure for things I thought were in my past
And then we had the dreaded chickenpox. As kids, I mean. Back in those days, there was a checklist of diseases you were doomed to catch, just because you were a kid. I did catch most of them, and I was happy, because these were the “catch once and forget” category. As an adult, things were going to be smooth sailing.
Turns out, the childhood wisdom came without warranty. We were watching the news recently, and the health section (filler between sports and stocks) pointed out that there was a new vaccine for “zona” (a.k.a. shingles in parts of the world where English requires constant disambiguation). Given that 50% of the population could contract this illness, which was described as (possibly) very painful, the spouse immediately pointed out that we should join the queue, cost be damned.
I didn’t realize that the news was actually a vehicle for advertising, and that the new vaccine was
- a) new
- b) expensive
- c) only available to those born before 1950
I hate new, I hate expensive and I’m too young to qualify. Guess I am safe for now. But how many other illnesses that I believed to be over and done with are going to reappear, as soon as some young whippersnapper with a penchant for recombinant DNA gets a good weekend in? They’re testing (on monkeys) a vaccine to cure colour blindness, and that’s serious news for anyone that has involuntarily worn black and brown socks on the same day. What about a vaccine that keeps hair from seeking an assist from gravity? Could we be left with Kojak as a folk hero?
Suddenly, my future seems fraught with things to worry needlessly over.
