Being born in 1950 offered the benefit of always knowing how old I was in any given year. No math involved, as there is for those born in a year that ends in a 3 or a 7. Go ahead, throw any year at me, and I can tell you how old I was. Did you say 1987? I was 37 years old. How about 1991? I was 41 years old. I will admit, it got a bit harder when we entered a new century. I mean, there was some math involved, like adding 50 to whatever year it is. It is now 2021. I am fast approaching the age of 71, and grateful to be alive.
And I want to stay alive. More on that later.
One of my earliest memories of growing up in a small town in the 1950s is that of a woman named Fran who lived up the street from me. She was a wife and a mother to three children: Gary, Carl, and Nancy, who was just a year younger than I. Fran had polio, and although my tiny brain was not able to understand what that meant, I knew it was something to be afraid of. When Fran died, her children moved in with their grandmother who lived across the street. Mrs. Stanton raised them as well as any parent could. I cannot ever recall Nancy talking about her mother; perhaps she was too young to even remember her.
In 1955, Dr. Jonas Salk was responsible for creating a vaccine against polio. His name was celebrated everywhere. Somewhere around 1961, Dr. Albert Sabin came up with a better idea. Instead of receiving four injections of Salk's killed-virus vaccine, children could get a live-virus vaccine, usually given by droplets on a sugar cube. I swear to you, I can still picture my 11-year-old self standing in a line of children at our local high school, eagerly holding out my tongue for my sugar cube. (I loved sugar! Don't even ask me how much I snuck onto my morning Rice Krispies!) And just like that, we were all safe from polio.
But before the polio vaccine, there was the smallpox vaccine, which was given by injection into the arm. I don't know how old I was or what year it was when I was vaccinated, so I'm guessing I was just a baby. What I do remember is the scar that the vaccination left. As kids, we would compare the round scars on our left arms to see whose was bigger. (That scar made it easier to determine left from right for those of us who were - and still are - directionally challenged.) Guess what? I just checked, and that scar is still visible on my almost-71-year-old left arm! Smallpox was eventually eradicated, and the smallpox vaccine was stopped in 1972. (I was 22 years old. See how easy that is?)
Fast forward to today. I am currently hiding out in my winter abode. Florida is home to a gazillion senior citizens, and we are all at the top of the list to get vaccinated for COVID-19. It's a shit-show. For several weeks now, my guy and I have tried multiple ways to get in a line for the vaccine with no success. Until yesterday, when my resolve to stare at a computer screen paid off. I got in! (My guy did not.) I was able to schedule appointments for both of us, one at a time. So what if our appointments are not on the same day? We got in!
And this morning, I got my first shot of the Moderna vaccine. As of this writing, about five hours after the shot, I have no pain, no swelling, no rash, no nothing . . . except the comfort and satisfaction of knowing that I am on my way to a normal life again. I can put my fear aside a bit and dream about future happy hours and live music and road trips and flights to wonderful places. I can visit my children more, especially my newly-married California son, whom I have not seen in a year. I can hold my brand new granddaughter and sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" to her. I can make the most of whatever time I have left on this planet and never take my breath, my heart, my mobility for granted.
I have a better shot at staying alive. A shot. Amen.
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