By Elissa Caterfino Mandel

I’m officially in the age group that requires shots for diseases  I didn’t used to think about.  Let the new two-round shingles shot serve as Exhibit A in a discussion of things that people my age are oddly hot for; personally, I’d rather use my chits to clamor for good seats to “The Ferryman”.

Many of my friends who’ve gotten the shot have ended up with flu symptoms 24 or 48 hours after the first dose.  High fevers, body aches, and chills are not my idea of enjoyable mid-week activities, so I put the shot on hold until I  felt I had time to slot the flu into my schedule.   

It’s crazy, looking at my calendar to decide on an optimal flu time.  Do I give up lunch with my best friend?  A weekend with my husband?  Three work appointments?  Exercise?  Ultimately, I did what I always do when I’m driving myself crazy about something I don’t want to do.  I jumped in.

Knowing the shot is in short supply, I called the pharmacy in the ambulatory care center near my home, where my internist told me “they have plenty of it”.  While they may have plenty of it, they apparently didn’t have plenty of it for me. “Oh, yes, we have it,” the woman on the phone assured me. “But we can’t give it to any new people.”

New people?  I think the issue is exactly the opposite.  I’m an old person or at least a semi-old person by the standards of the shingles shot.  I just squeak in to the eligibility pool at age 57.   When I asked the clerk what she meant by a “new person,”  she told me that because they don’t have enough of dose two, they can’t give dose one to new patients.  Yes, it’s ridiculous but true.  They’re sitting on a veritable stash of dose one  to make sure they have enough of part two to complete the course of the vaccination.

Keep in mind that between two to six months can go by between the time of the first shot and the second.  Did they really think they wouldn’t have dose two in time for my 58th birthday?  The woman told me she couldn’t be sure; supplies were iffy.  Really?  It’s hard to believe that there is such a run on a shot that seems to make every third person sick.

Something else occurred to me.   Shouldn’t they be obligated by law, or at the very least by the health department, to send the excess dose one back to the CDC or to another local pharmacy?  They weren’t behaving like a health organization.  They were hoarders. I flash backed to when my kids were little and limited-edition Beanie Babies would show up at certain toy stores for a short period of time.  Parents were willing to eat other people’s young to get a Beanie Baby for their kids.

Would I prostitute myself similarly for a shingles vaccine?  I’m still young, I told myself.  I have a healthy immune system.   I’m not afraid of a little shingles.  Fortunately, reason prevailed.

So I was in the ridiculous position of lobbying for something I was conflicted about getting in the first place.  But lobby I did. However, I was polite.  I asked if I could put my name down and reserve a dose one shot for later, for when dose two had arrived. “Oh, no,” the woman said.  “We don’t keep records like that.”  It occurred to me only after I hung up the phone  that if they kept no records, they couldn’t possibly know I was a “new person” unless I identified myself as such, which, unfortunately, I had already done. Oh, well.  Sayonara shingles vaccine.

Later at the gym, where I’d never be going if I ended up with shingles shot-induced flu, my friend told me she’d gotten her shot at the CVS in Springfield.  After being turned down by the ambulatory care center, I called over there.  “Yes,” they informed me.  “We have two batches of dose one left, so you can come over and get it.”  Oh, goody.  Two batches?  How much was a batch?  A single shot?  That sounded chancy.  Again, I asked if I could put my name on a list and  reserve one of the two for myself.  Nope, not allowed.  “What are the chances the shots will be gone by the time I get there?” I asked the woman. “They’ll be here,” she said.

It was a funny answer, given that I didn’t tell her how far away I lived. What if it took me three hours to get there?  But we had a deal. I felt like I’d been asked on a date.  I went over there yesterday, got dose one, and here I sit with a very sore shoulder waiting for my chills to begin.

 

 

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