Over 60 and Afraid

Several people I am no longer speaking to have accused me of being unduly neurotic. I disagree; I believe I am duly neurotic and worry only about things that could really happen. Lately it has come to my attention that one of the things I should be worried about is contracting shingles, and if you are over 60, so should you. According to the TV commercials, if you had chickenpox as a child the virus is already living inside you! That's a low blow aimed right at my generation: "The call is coming from inside the house!" was a famous line in the 1979 horror movie, "When a Stranger Calls." I never saw it because I need my sleep, but still, I heard that line plenty.

Shingles, a.k.a. herpes zoster, is a painful, blistering skin rash due to the varicella-zoster virus, the very same virus that causes chickenpox. The sales pitch for the drug that you need to prevent getting shingles, which is apparently incredibly painful and much worse than childbirth or anything you can imagine, is meant to scare the living daylights, whatever those are, out of you. And it's not just on TV; once in a while a casual comment will alert you to the danger lurking within, like when my friend Bill suggested that upon my return from Haiti I should immediately get a shingles vaccine because a friend of his had it and it was really horrible, and also terrible. I asked if that friend had gone to Haiti beforehand and he said no, it was not related at all, it was just a thought. (Bill is exactly my age.)

The irony lies in the fact that when I was a kid, my parents sent me to a "chickenpox party" in the neighborhood so I could catch it early and thus get a milder case. Naturally I did the same thing with my own child, and at age four Zack got it from Katie across the street. I was so happy! Now I'm worried that he has the shingles virus living inside of him too, which by the way is a perfect example of being unduly neurotic.

Anyway, I called my doctor and the nurse I spoke with immediately asked if I have health insurance since the vaccine costs $260 and not everyone covers it. I said I would pay out of pocket to save myself from the horror and dread of such a debilitating disease that also never goes away, and she said she still has to know about coverage because if I don't have any I'll have to pay before I get the shot. I jokingly asked if the shot could kill me and that's why I'd have to pay first, but she didn't laugh. Instead, she said the vaccine "Only works 50% of the time, but it does make the severity less severe." Which I thought was an interesting way to put it.