July 17, 2021
I love it when expectations aren’t met.
I was getting ready for my annual exam, and I thought: my doctor is going to ask if I’ve had the vaccine. Not only that, she’s going to try to talk me into getting the vaccine.
Taking a deep mental breath, I admonished myself: do not start spouting random facts and statistics that she doesn’t want to hear.
If she asks why you don’t want it, just say, “I’m not interested in getting it. If you want more information, check out the America’s Frontline Doctors’ website.”
Surely a doctor would like that, right? I mean, these are actual medical doctors just like her and she should respect that. It’s not like I’m sending her to Conspiracies ‘R’ Us-dot-com.
Thus mentally fortified, I ventured onward to meet my fate in the form of a petite young woman in a snowy white doctors’ coat.
*****
My perennially calm doctor looked up from her notes, smiling (I could tell) behind her mask. “So I remember from last time, you didn’t want the shingles vaccine. You said you don’t like vaccines.”
“Right.”
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask this anyway. Do you want the Covid vaccine?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, now about your lab work…”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. What? No argument? No pressure disguised as persuasion “for my health and well-being”?
*****
I’m surprised every day that we’re still participating in the Covid Show, perhaps a bit like Jim Carrey stuck in The Truman Show, never to escape.
A recent email update from Santa Barbara County contained some sort of technical-looking Covid information chart. I skimmed over it and was about to delete the message when one statistic popped out:
Approximately 50% of eligible county residents have received a vaccine.
Fifty percent? That’s all? Are my fellow county dwellers smarter than I think?
In other news, the local paper announced that Los Angeles County will reinstate their indoor mask mandate. For everyone, including the vaccinated. However, Santa Barbara County would not do so (the word “yet” was left out, but implied, at least to me).
All because some scary variant has purportedly popped up in the new starring role of the Covid Show.
While researching the starting date of the new mandate, I came across an announcement from the LA County Sheriff stating that, once again, sheriffs would not enforce the mask mandate because “it’s not backed by science.” The article dutifully quoted some LA County authority figure saying the sheriff was wrong.
I wonder how everyone who got vaxxed in LA because they were told it was safe and effective, and would give them back their freedom, feels right about now? Maybe like they bought a pig in a poke?
*****
I think back to my doctor’s refraining from pressuring me to Get The Vax. I remember previous conversations with her, and her passion for researching and exploring the borders of science and medicine.
Maybe I didn’t need to tell her about America’s Frontline Doctors. Maybe she already knows.
Perhaps she’s resisted the vaccine, herself, assuming she’s allowed the sovereign right of refusing an experimental drug injection. I’m familiar with the corporate lockstep of the large, multi-speciality clinic where she practices, and I know in my bones that resistance would be frowned upon, at the very least.
I visualize my doctor, who I don’t want to lose prematurely, surrounded by white light. As I do that, I imagine her smiling secretly behind her mask, lightly touching a quartz pendant beneath her pristine white coat, where it rests above her healer’s, her Lightworker’s, heart.
