Elizabeth at Boomer Highway suggested that I share the graph I'd linked to in my last post - seems like a good idea, here you are!
Here's an update to my late April "Frogma PSA: Measles News for the Midlife Set, in which I talked about finding out that my assumption (based on having incredibly responsible parents who would've given me all the childhood shots recommended at the time) that I was immune to the measles that are on the loose in Brooklyn might not be right. It felt a little bit like thinking I'd been walking around with pants on the whole time and then having a trusted friend say "Guess what..." - that kind of a bad surprise!
I wrote about it but didn't get right on with taking care of myself the way I should have. The beginning of each month gets busy with books to be closed at work and after that it had just kind of gone to the back burner, but Elizabeth A. Havey, a friend from my midlife women's blogging group recently did a post about it on her Boomer Highway. As you might guess from the name, she's a bit older than me (I'm Generation X) and her post was about her actual experience with the childhood diseases against which the MMR vaccine defends. Her measles experience in particular was so bad that her mother told her later that she "spent every moment watching over me, praying she wouldn’t lose me". So much for this business about measles not being a big deal, right?
Anyways, that was just the reminder I needed. I live about a mile from one of our Brooklyn measles outbreak hot spots and with new cases still being reported (there were 423 confirmed in NYC at the beginning of May, and a hundred more by May 20th), and my ordinarily mild asthma always waiting in the wings to complicate even the stupidest of common colds, this was really not something I wanted to keep gambling with.
Earlier this week, I checked in with my doctor about my concerns. She got right back to me saying "Get tested, and if you don't have immunity, get vaccinated". I went to one of those CityMD walk-in clinics (wouldn't want to trade in my doctors for those but boy are they convenient for these simple sorts of things) during my lunch hour on Tuesday for the blood draw. They promised results within 3 to 5 days. The very next afternoon, they sent me a "we would like to talk to you" email. Good followup, there's a patient portal where I could get the results but this was a 24 hour turnaround and I wouldn't have been looking for a couple more days.
Sure enough, it turns out that I've got no immunity to ANY of those MMR guys. Yikes!
I got vaccinated today - doing my bit both for myself and for the neighborhood.
SO glad I found out about this!
3 comments:
I am very happy you got the heads up and got the vaccine. I have been a bit negligent in asking my doctor (I was born before the vaccines, but don't know for sure if I ever got measles. Nor have I checked to see if my insurance will cover a blood test or the MMR vaccine if I don't have immunity. My brother in law, who is disabled, had to get blood work re immunity before he could move into supported housing last year and his insurance did not cover the test so I am a bit hesitant. (The agency did get it covered somehow). Thank you for sharing your update.
CityMD warned me that my insurance may not cover it, but living as close to one of the hot spots as I do, I'll pay out of pocket if I need to. We had 423 confirmed cases at the beginning of May and we're up to 523 as to May 20th, so it's still spreading here.
And with my history of everything I ever get landing in my lungs, I'm pretty sure measles would go the pneumonia route.
Which insurance probably WOULD cover, but it's just not something I want to do!
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