Staying Healthy – One Vax at a Time

This post is a reminder for all my friends of a certain age. It’s also for my younger friends who have parents or friends who are my age. Go get those vaccinations!

Hubby and I try to stay as healthy as we can. We don’t get everything right, of course. Especially when it comes to food. We had our share of goodies at Thanksgiving and I’m sure we’ll repeat that little scenario at Christmas when all of our kids and grands will be here.

MEDICARE YEARLY – LOTS OF SHOTS!

Back in September, we each had our yearly Medicare well-person physicals. If you’ve never done this, it’s mostly blood work and answering a ton of questions about lifestyle and things like, when did you last have a tetanus booster? We both recalled the doctor in Florida who took care of us the last time. That time frame told us it was over ten years ago, so it was time for another one. She noted we’ve each had both available shingles vaccinations. No more of those are needed. Yay!

Our doctor advised us to get the Prevnar 20 pneumonia vaccination even though each of us has had both of the earlier ones. The Prevnar 20 would act as a booster to those two and is much newer than those which we had about the same time as that last tetanus. We got our flu vax for the year the day we got the Prevnar.

There were signs all over Publix when we went in for our Prevnar vax. I sent our doctor a message asking about the available RSV vaccination. She said we should do that one as well.

Here is information about the RSV vax:  https://www.cdc.gov/rsv

Staying Healthy - One Vax at a Time @DDuPreeWilliams #health #vaccinations Share on X

DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER (WRITER)

We are caught up with our vaxes for quite a while. I asked the pharmacist who delivered our two vaxes this week how long the RSV one will last. A lifetime? Will it be yearly? Her answer—for now it is a once-in-a-lifetime injection. That’s good.

I can tell you from personal experience, yes, the T-dap, formerly tetanus, can make one’s arm very painful for a day or so, but it is so much better than the grave consequences once associated with it. My grandmother, Daddy’s mother, stepped on a rusty nail when she was 54, a time when there was no tetanus shot and penicillin had yet to be discovered. She died what I imagine was a painful death. Let me remind you, tetanus was formerly called lock-jaw. Daddy and his twin brother were only 17, and their baby sister was just 15 or so.

CLICHE, BUT – JUST DO IT!

So, if you think you’ve fallen behind on those needed boosters or other preventative vaxes, ask your physician what they think about all of them. I know this makes our children happy as now they won’t worry about us as much as they may have, had we not done this.

PS – The pain and soreness weren’t as bad as we expected. Hooray!

Blessings, y’all!

Okay, I know this isn’t the taste of most of you, but I couldn’t resist. This is what happens when one has two music degrees, you learn obscure things most people would not know. I’ve loved Bryn Terfel a long, long time. He is Welsh. Hubby and I both have tons of Welsh heritage.  I had to laugh when I thought of this. Our poor arms! We were so brave!