The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
RSS feeds: v0.91; v1.0 (RDF); v2.0; Atom.
Previous entry.
8:40am on Thursday, 9th October, 2025:
Anecdote
Yesterday, I had my winter flu jab. I went to the surgery and joined the flu queue. There were two nurses doing to jabs, one upstairs and one downstairs. It turned out that a lot of people in the queue didn't want to take the stairs, so I was able to jump past six people for my turn. There's a lift in the surgery, but no-one seemed to be aware of it, and I wasn't about to tell them.
The nurse told me I was also in line for a Shingles jab. I told her I'd had one already, which surprised her because you can't get them until you're 65. I was 65 in January and had mine in February, though. She then announced it was a two-parter — which was news to me — and I could have the second one six to twelve months after the first. As a result, I got not only my innoculation against flu, but also completed by one against shingles.
I was feeling quite pleased about this, until a quarter past midnight. As I went to bed, I felt myself shivering. I thought that was a bit odd, because it wasn't that cold, so I got under the duvet an warmed up.
I never cooled down. I burnt up with heat. I threw off the covers and it made no difference. I must have got some sleep, but I was barely aware of doing so. It was a rather unpleasant fever.
This didn't happen the last time I had a flu jab (or for shingles jab #1, come to that), so either this winter's flu is more potent or my immune system can't cope with dealing with two innoculations at once.
Still, if the innoculation makes my eyes ache and my legs feel like lead, imagine what the flu itself would do to me. I don't regret having it.
Right, I think I'll go to sleep now.
Latest entries.
Archived entries.
About this blog.
Copyright © 2025 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).