It's REAALLY DIFFICULT to write one of these posts with a puppy underfoot! I can see now why raising babies is a young person's game. You don't get any sleep at all, do you? Even our Louis, who is so much better and smarter than all the other puppies, still only has the bladder the size of a peanut, and has to go out every couple of hours day and night. I haven't slept this poorly since I had to work for a living. No, not even then--it's since we had babies in the house.
This morning I was taking Louis out for his third walk of the day, and I noticed he was trying to hide something in his mouth. He finally admitted that it was a chewed-up Tootsie Pop. I don't know where he got it--it's been many Halloweens since we had them in the house--and I don't know if he found it all chewed up like that or did it himself. It looked like most of the chocolate center was still present, but I've heard about chocolate and dogs so I worriedly called the vet.
They weren't worried. "You know that Tootsie Pops don't really have any chocolate in them, don't you? Just chocolate flavor and brown food coloring." "er, uh, sure, I knew that!" "Just keep an eye on him and let us know if he vomits or acts funny". He didn't, so I stopped worrying about him and looked up Tootsie Pops to see if I had been lied to all these years. I learned (a) they do have some cocoa in them (a bit more cocoa than salt, which can't be that much), and (b) Tootsie Rolls were invented in 1908 but it took a hundred years for them to be certified Kosher.
Now here's our story.
Kathleen has a superpower. She can strike up a conversation with a complete stranger, any complete stranger, and within five minutes they are fast friends who have shared all of their deepest secrets, things they might not have told even their spouse. She can build a bond of intimacy over a shared wait in line, a serving of eggs at a greasy spoon diner, or a “shushh” from the presiding librarian. She can learn things from a coworker of mine she met two minutes ago that I hadn’t gleaned in ten years of working side-by-side. (I’m aware that this may also say something about my own super-antipower.)
Kathleen uses her powers only for good, and recently she decided she was going to do some good for herself. Having seen on the news that doses of covid vaccine had started to be available beyond medical professionals, but not finding any mention of it locally, she struck up a phone conversation with one of the staff at her doctor’s office. Within minutes she had built that magic bond, and gleaned that there was some talk of doctors being able to alert the Calvert County Health Department of patients needing (and therefore eligible for) covid vaccination as soon as practicable. Kathleen is immuno-compromised (lupus) so she certainly qualifies, and her new friend promised to nag the doctor until he sent Kathleen’s name in.
When her friend alerted her that the necessary name-dropping to the Health Department had been effected, she began her second campaign. She called up the County Health Department and found someone in the office handling covid who would speak to her. Again within minutes, she made fast friends with that person, who promised to scour the recent communications to the office and, finding Kathleen’s name, she would proceed to nag her boss until he translated this doctor’s request into an appointment to receive the vaccine.
I’ve seen this amazing instant intimacy of Kathleen’s work many times in our years together, but never with so focused a purpose planned from the start and executed so efficiently. Within a couple of days, Kathleen had an appointment to get her first shot, right along with all those people who had conscientious doctors!
Oh hooray! The year-long nightmare might finally be coming to a close! Imagine shopping in a grocery store, being able to pick out the non-damaged fruit from the rejects rather than relying on a staffer there. Being able to go to the dentist, or the hair-cutters! Visiting our grand-kids!!
So last week, we took the trek to get Kathleen her first vaccine shot from the County Health Department, who had cleverly set up a drive-through vaccinarium in a local industrial park.
We were nervous. What if something goes wrong? We double-checked her paperwork and her ID, bundled Louis into the car, and off we went. The lines were relatively short, unlike the Florida horror stories we had seen on TV, and seemed well organized. Louis got a little overwhelmed from all the cars and masked health department workers, and started a non-stop barrage of yapping that made it hard to hear our instructions. At one point I panic-dropped Kathleen’s drivers license, and it quickly scuttled into an unreachable crevice between the front seat and the center console, but fortunately she had another valid ID in her wallet. Disaster averted! And just like that, Kathleen was next in line, and then was receiving her shot, with me sweating anxiously beside her and Louis going apoplectic in the back seat. A brief wait to make sure she didn’t drop dead from the injection, and we’re off for home, mission accomplished!
My own first injection would have to wait another week, mainly because (a) I don’t have Kathleen’s persuasive superpowers, but also because (b) my risk factors weren’t as high as hers, and (c) my doctor’s office seemed less amenable to referring me to the County (although (c) might just be a manifestation of (a)). At one point, my doctor’s office told me that they were expecting a load of vaccine themselves any day, so weren’t referring anybody anywhere else. I observed to them that this sounded like a business decision designed to benefit them rather than a medical decision designed to benefit me, and that finally softened their hearts and they referred me.
Yesterday we did the same drill for my vaccine shot as we had done for Kathleen’s, but without any of the panic. Even Louis seemed laid back in the presence of all the strange cars and people. After all, we were seasoned veterans at this now.
So now we both have had our first of two Moderna vaccination shots, with the second shots (supplies willing) coming in February. What a freeing experience! I feel so much better now after the shot, even though my arm is sore. My confidence that I can re-enter the world is returning. I know intellectually that it will take both shots before I am as immune as modern technology can make me, and further that even the partial benefit I get from one shot will take some time to materialize, but even so!
It’s funny, but my new-found feeling of invincibility actually started when I first received the email inviting me to the vaccinery to get the shot! Just because there’s no scientific evidence that any immunity is conferred by the vaccine before the shot is actually injected, that doesn’t mean that no extra protection is present. I refer you to a Harvard study that showed that a placebo could provide medical benefit even if you know you are only taking a placebo. They suggested that the mere act of participating in the ritual of medical care was enough to provide the benefit. If it works for taking a pill labeled “placebo”, it should work for signing up for a vaccine appointment too.
The word “immune”, by the way, is from the Latin im(not) • munis(serviceable). The parent word “mune” means not immune, or vulnerable. My current condition, and Kathleen’s, where we have some but not all of the immunity conveyed by the vaccine, is termed “half-mune”.
But being vaccinated doesn’t mean taking stupid risks. We both still wear our masks and wash our hands, and will continue to do so even after we get the second shot and our antibody titers rise to the full level.
And you should too! It’s only common sense, and common decency. A vaccinated person can still carry the disease to an un-inocculated (or “full-mune”) person, and can still act as an incubator for millions of little covid bugs to reproduce and mutate. When you think about almost a billion people around the world providing test chambers for those coronavirus germs, it’s no wonder we’re starting to see new and more dangerous variants emerging!
So continue to keep your distance, wash your hands, and for heaven’s sake wear the damn mask when you’re around other people! Provide the benefit to others, even if you don’t want it or don’t believe in it yourself. Apply the lesson of the old story about physicist Niels Bohr (or in some versions, Albert Einstein): when a visitor observed a horseshoe nailed over the great scientist’s door and asked if he really believed the superstition that this brought good luck, Bohr/Einstein replied, “No, of course I don’t believe that. But I’m told that the horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not.” As with horseshoes, so with facemasks.
Thanks for listening, and stay safe, Dorn 1/20/2021
