The "Gettin' The Double Dose" Story

The red double dose!

It was an ordinary day.  Reading in the paper about the tremendous amount of people who have the flu this winter.  One of the worst outbreaks of the disease in over 10 years.  Two people have already died in Lancaster, PA.  Both were over the age of 60 which is considered one of the two "most at risk" groups with children being the other.  Carol and I didn't want to chance it this year being that I had a round of shingles which started last April and are still lingering in my body and Carol had a bout of mono around Labor Day.  Since our immune systems are on the low end of fighting just about any disease, we called our family doctor and scheduled flu shots.  While on the phone with him he told me that he was going to give us the double dose which he usually recommends for adults over age 65.  I questioned him if that may give us flu twice as fast and he assured me it wouldn't.  Well, shot day came and Carol and I traveled to Lancaster Internal Medicine on Cherry Street in Lancaster.  Located right around the corner from where I grew up as a child, not that it makes any difference.  We checked in, gave the receptionist our insurance cards and headed to the waiting room.  Told Carol not to touch a thing including the magazines and the arms of the chairs.  More than likely someone with the flu virus had just left and had sat in these same chairs and had read a magazine while leaning on the arm of the chair.  We sat straight up with our hands in our laps, making sure that we didn't touch anything with our bare skin.  Laughed the entire time at how silly we looked, but at least we weren't going to leave today with the flu.  Finally the nurse came and wanted to know what was so funny.  Gave her some reason and off we went to the "shot room."  I went first and when she got out the needle I asked her what the difference was between the single dose and the double dose.  She looked at me and said, "Twice the amount."  OK.  Then she said, "I'm only giving you the single dose today."  "Wait a minute," I responded.  "Dr. Sanchez told me that since both of us have been ill in the past few months with diseases that are hard to shake that we should receive the double dose.  Besides we are both over 65 years old and in the group that gets the flu a lot easier."  Off she went to see the doctor and in a few minutes came back with the bigger needles.  "Whoa, that certainly is a double dose," I said while looking at what she was going to put in my arm.  "Are you sure this won't give me the flu!" I asked her.  "No, the virus is dead that is in the serum," she responded.  "I certainly hope so or I'll be back here real quick," I shot back.  Carol and I both got our injections and had no problems.  At times Carol will get ill and blame it on the shot, but not this time.  After reading about all the problems with the flu this year I'm sure glad we got our shots and especially that we got the double dose.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.