Note to self: there’s no prize for immunizations
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Loading ...As I write this, I feel quite the little girly man. You see, I had to get a whole battery of immunizations to prepare for public clinic work (not that it’s a bad idea being in Mexico anyway) later this month. I had been procrastinating all semester, so there’s no way to pull any records from the States to see if I need a full DT injection or just a booster. Does it really matter? No–it’s a stick all the same, and quite frankly the pain and hassle of getting some of these records from ages ago would have been a herculean time-consuming task in and of itself (not to mention cost, since proving I had chicken pox by serological titer costs 3x more than the vaccination).
So I want into the Vaccination Shack on Friday and said, “Hit me!” indicating, from the given menu, all of the following which are mandatory (for now; there are more starting our 3rd year at the hospital):
- Hepatitis B, Hepatitis A
- Measels, Mumps, Rubella (MMR)
- Diptheria, Tetanus (DT)
- Chickenpox
- Meningococcus
- Pneumococcus
I think it was four sticks, but that wasn’t any big deal; you hardly feel these things as anything other than a tiny nuisance. I knew I might have a small reaction, perhaps some redness, but I was concerned more about an immune reaction. As the day and night progressed, nothing happened. However, early this morning I woke up and thought I needed a sling for my arm it was so stiff, with a bright red, diffuse rash spreading radially from the injection site on my upper arm. There was never any fever, thankfully. It just seems silly … I knew I might feel bad the next day but not 2 days later, and certainly not from the SHOTS … jeez! Could I be any more pathetic? I guess so, since I’m telling everyone about it.
Note to self: get these done earlier, and don’t get 7 at a time.
Medical School, Personal | enrico | 
November 6, 2005 12:05 pm
By Raul Benavides, November 8, 2005 @ 5:15 pm
pneumovax?
since when did you lose your spleen?
Or have you been shooting up that black market chemotherapy again!!!!!
By enrico, November 9, 2005 @ 11:43 am
Pneumovax
Do you know how hard it is to get good vein juice down here? Don’t ask me…I’m sure there is some good epidemiological reason due to whatever bugs/incidence rates exist down here. Or at least I have to keep telling myself that w/o worrying about what the vaccine might be hypersensitizing myself to….I just do what I’m told like a good monkey.