Got the second of three Gardasil shots yesterday to fend off the ol’ HPV.
A nurse wearing an awkward bumblebee costume that could have doubled has a way to hide a pregnancy administered it into my left arm.
There’s a burn after the poke that feels like a fire ant crawled under the top layer of skin, had little fire-ant babies and then let them spread throughout your arm.
“WOW. That, umm, hurts,” I told the nurse, trying to hide the tears I felt inside.
“It typically does with the Gardasil,” she said like an evil bumblebee.
I knew that. I’d already had one shot. But holy needle did it still hurt.
And last time my arm was sore for three weeks. Like can’t-even-carry-my-purse-on-that-shoulder sore. Or why-does-holding-the-steering-wheel-have-to-be-SO-painful sore.
I’m told that’s normal, which I interrupt to mean “Your arm will now, again, be sore for three weeks.”
All this so I won’t get HPV.
I’m not even entirely sure what HPV is or why I should fear it.
Not to mention that the process requires a six-month commitment to getting the doses, and the longest commitment I’ve made, ever, was to the season pass at Great America and that was only five months from date of purchase to close of park.
I have this irrational fear that when it’s time for the final shot, I will find myself someplace remote with either multiple rainforests or multiple trailer parks and no nurses or health insurance in sight and then somehow the first two doses no longer will be effective because I won’t get the final dose in time!
Also, I have a newfound irrational fear of bumblebees.