I don’t remember very much when I was younger, but I do remember getting shots. I hated getting shots. Every now and then I would get dragged to the doctor to get shots. My sister too. She was plied with pet goldfish and I was plied with ice cream. It still didn’t change the fact that getting shots sucked.

Nowadays, I still hate shots. I don’t hate them because they hurt, I hate them because they don’t help and some cases cause harm. The worse kind of shots are vaccines, because while the doctors claim these shots will heal you (if you have a disease) or prevent you from getting infected, these shots actually hurt you worse than the diseases you are trying to prevent yourself from getting!

I have taken shots for specific diseases for travel. When I went to Africa, my family and I all got shots for Malaria and another disease (my memory is hazy on this one). I took shots in high school for the flu and I remember girls getting offered HPV shots.

At the time I didn’t know about the truth about vaccines. Now I do. I refuse to take any shot that is a vaccine or some other drug that I do not know about (morphine might be okay). When my university offered flu vaccine shots, I refused to take one. I had to read some bullshit information about the dangers of not getting the vaccine and I had to sign off (that I did not receive the vaccine) before I was allowed to leave.

A brief history for context. I was born 3 months pre-mature and bear a scar across my stomach that constantly reminds me. For a long time when I was young I got sick often, I got constipated, I took a lot of allergy medication. When I moved to France for six years, I got a stomach virus and was sick for a whole month in the first year. I had three asthma attacks stretched over three years. When I went to military school, things changed. I got more active; I was required to play a sport. I was in the country with fresh air and the barracks was quiet at night (as opposed to the city) so I got better sleep there than I did at home. The food wasn’t the best (it seemed as if everyone in the corps got diarrhea one month!) but it was varied and I could make my own sandwiches at the salad bar (which was excellent!). I made peanut butter and honey sandwiches all the time. Fast forward to high school. I get hay fever every year and I get the cold in January. What’s the common denominator? I almost never get sick. Never. It’s the same with my dad. He never gets sick. When he goes to the hospital for any check ups, all the doctors tell him that his organ make him look like he is in his forties (he is in his sixties).

When I truly got sick once in eleventh grade, I had a cold and it lasted for 1 day. One day! I’ve talked to a friend at my university who talked about how he would take a week (or longer!) to get over the common cold. I could not hide my disbelief.

I commented on Bill’s post:

I believe the best medicine is good sleep, good food, and exposure to sunlight.

Interesting how hospitals give you crap food and keep you out of the sun (they try with the beds, though). Plus, cooping sick people up with sick people (giving birth in a hospital?!) is not a good idea in my book. The reason why so many people get sick in cities (history class) and in barracks and dorms (personal experience) is because of the proximity of everybody to everybody and their sicknesses.

My family has a saying, “If you want to live to 100, pick your parents and stay out of the hospital.”

~Wald

Post Script: I also subscribe to the belief, “As you think, you shall become”, in that I refuse to get sick. Whenever I am sick, I do not distress the pain. I get angry that my body has gotten weak, that I have to take time off from doing things I want or need to do.