the government flu....

It's that time of year again where I get to be death-stared by malevolent pensioners.  Yes.  It's time for my annual flu-jab.  As someone with a chronic neurological condition, I am eligible, along with the elderly, for a free influenza jab.  Every year at about this time, I sit in the waiting room at the doctor's waiting for my turn, getting stared out by old people who can see nothing wrong with me and who assume that for me to get a flu jab, one of them has to die.

Maybe that's true.  So be it, I say.

I sometimes forget that I'm on drugs that are designed to suppress my immune system, and that this presumably makes me more vulnerable to anything that might be going around.  I never used to get colds.  I naively used to put this down to the volume of fruit and vegetables that I ate and the exercise that I took, rather than simply my over-active immune system.  I can't seem to get used to the idea that I'm not indestructible any more and may occasionally fall prey to a sore throat or a lingering cough.

In case I do forget though, there are plenty of things that remind me, the weekly injection notwithstanding.  This week I received a nice letter from the practice nurse ("I hope you don't mind me writing to you....") reminding me that I needed to get my blood tests done.  The reason for those blood tests? The header on the letter says it all:

HIGH DRUG RISK BLOOD MONITORING

All in capitals.

Underlined.

sigh.