inessential by Brent Simmons

Vaccines Again

Whenever the subject of vaccines come up, I remember my post from a few years ago about chicken pox. I wish the chicken pox vaccine had been available then. My eyes wouldn’t be so ruined.

What I didn’t tell in that original post — because I was so sick and barely aware of what was going on at the time, because my Mom told me about it after I wrote that post — was that I nearly didn’t survive. I was seriously dehydrated, since I couldn’t even sip water without throwing up, and I needed to go the hospital.

But there had been a blizzard. We lived at the bottom of a big, steep hill, and the car was parked at the top of the hill. My parents would have had to bundle me up and drag me on a sled up the hill to the car — and Mom tells me they weren’t sure I’d survive the trip.

Luckily I was finally able to drink a little water — well after going to the hospital was a good idea, but just before it was a desperate move in the cold and piled-up snow.

This is what these diseases are like sometimes. I’m reminded every single day when I take out my contact lenses and my vision becomes a solid blur.

Since I made it, since I survived, I can tell you about it. If I hadn’t, there’d just be silence where I would have been.

Update 1:15 pm: Mom reminds me it wasn’t water but cherry jello.