Most Americans Have No Clue What Immunocompromised Means
Let’s understand who the immunocompromised are
When I was thirteen, my older sister saved my life. Or so she claims.
She administered an eighteenth-century-style chickenpox inoculation. She sat on my head and rubbed her open, weeping, itchy, chickenpox sores all over my arms, legs, and torso. It was a tad cruel.
“Mom says you have to get chickenpox now, so you don’t get it worse later. I am saving your life!”
Ahhhh, siblings.
I didn’t get chickenpox. (Thanks to modern science, I was later vaccinated when pregnant with my daughter.)
My sister’s Jenner-inspired inoculation did work on my other siblings. They all broke out in the telltale itchy welts. That was the first time I noticed that something was different with my immune system.
While other people got seasonal coughs and colds, I seemed invincible. When mononucleosis took out half the field hockey team in high school, I wondered why I had drunk from the same water bottle and not gotten sick. And when my roommates in college got influenza, I ran around taking care of them.
“How come you never get sick?” one asked.
