Ouch . . .

So. Today I had a tetanus shot. Probably not even a blip on the radar for most people, but I haven't had one for a very long time. . .

When I was kid, I sliced the ball of my foot off. I caught it in the spokes on the front wheel of my bike (riding barefoot to the beach . . . hey, I was a KID . . . ), which entailed a tetanus shot. Back in the day, tetanus shots had other animal proteins in them. Way back, it was called horse serum - my mom had a shot back then, and was paralyzed for three days.

Mine, not quite that bad. My arm swelled up to about twice it's normal size, and of course they gave it to me in my left arm (I'm left-handed) and being a kid, I didn't think to say, hey - right arm, please. For three days, my arm was in agonizing pain. Moving it even a little was excruciating. I think it was worse than the pain in what was left of the ball of my left foot . . .

So, as I was saying, I haven't had a tetanus shot for a very long time. There have been a number of times when I should have had a booster - like the time I opened my thumb up in the yard in Denver - with a saw . . . but every time I have explained the reaction I had from the last shot, peoples' eyes usually just glazed over and they would say, "um, think we'll skip the shot and just watch you."

I never worked with raw fleece for just this reason - you're supposed to be up to date on your tetanus to be working with farm animal stuff. I don't have that excuse any longer (I'm not too interested in spinning raw fleece anyway ;-)).

But I'm going to Morocco, and they say you have to be up on all your vaccinations to go to a place like that. So, I had it all set up for tomorrow. My asthma doc is also an immunologist, and I was supposed to be having the shot in three doses (that's THREE SHOTS (oh, I don't think so) :-S), where they would wait and watch me, with 15 to 20 minutes in between each shot. I've been gearing myself up for this for at least a month. I set it up for tomorrow to give me three days to recover.

And then the doc's office rang me on Monday and said they were going to be closed after all on Friday, and I would have to reschedule. I knew I would continue to postpone if I didn't follow through now, so I bit the bullet and scheduled for TODAY.

After a long conversation with the doc, and some research I did on my own (apparently the Td shot is nothing like it used to be . . . ), we decided to go with one shot, in my RIGHT arm thankyouverymuch. I had to lie down for 20 minutes (that was more because I am a wussy where needles are concerned), and then sit in the waiting room for another 45.

My arm hurts a little now. But I'm hopeful that it won't swell up overnight and I'll be able to go to work tomorrow. And if it does swell up, apparently it's prednisone for a few days. As much as I hate that stuff, I can do it - I've had to do it for bad asthma attacks. I can stand the short course. More than anything, though, I'm completely exhausted. I must have been really, really keyed up and anxious about this, and now that it's over, my body just wants to sleep. I nodded off on the train multiple times (never a good thing). I'm home early, so I'm about to grab something for dinner and curl up on the couch in the sunroom.

I really want to go to Morocco.

Can you tell?

:-D

Comments

-k. said…
wow! glad it went over rather uneventful, it's so interesting to read your perspective on what is indeed mundane to most. totally jealous you're going to morocco too!!
Kris said…
phew... what a relief.
Michelle said…
Here's hoping you're at work with nothing more than a slightly sore arm!

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