Peter Parker – Getting On

I am become pin-cushion. In the last few weeks I have had blood drawn from me three times and various viruses (dead, alive and partial) pumped into me half a dozen more. This week the nurse plans to deplete my ichor by a further 30ml whilst enhancing my vigour by injecting me with something that will stiffen my resolve in the face of pneumonia and shingles. I am 65 years of age and the NHS is making me superhuman. At the rate I am being pumped full of beneficial fluids, I will, should I make it to 100, be inured to all known ailments.

Now please don’t think, even for a second, that I am in anyway ungrateful for these recent ministrations. I most definitely am not. Above all else I wish to be as well as I can be for as long as I might live, and I am quite happy to be pierced in order to get me there. It all comes along at once, which is fine – viruses don’t form an orderly queue, do they? They are bullies: they gang up on you. They are like hyenas and estate agents, constantly looking for an area of weakness to exploit. I’m very happy to accept aching arms if that’s what it takes to keep them at bay. The little red, hot and itchy patches are my spider bites. They are my River Styx.

Unfortunately, like my more revered fellow Styx-dipper, I do have an area of particular vulnerability. My own Achilles Heel is that I am me: a walking bad decision. If there is a wrong choice to make, I will make it. If there is a worst time to do it, I will be counting down the seconds. My capacity for unintentional self-harm is unrivalled in the modern world. If there is something to walk into, I will do so. If there is something to trip over, I will do that also. If there is someone very big and very angry who is just waiting to be offended, I will find him. I am an Exocet missile with ‘Home’ programmed into its GPS.

One good thing about slowing down as you get older is that you don’t hit things quite so hard. I’m at a loss to think of any others. Falling over is a particular problem associated with ageing and it is of particular concern to me as it is something at which I am particularly adept. I can find a patch of something slippery with my eyes closed. I am notoriously unstable on snow or ice and I can perform the kind of gymnastics usually associated with pre-pubescent Romanians with just a few wet leaves to assist me. Dick Fosbury had a flop named after him after leaping over a six foot barrier, I can achieve the same landing position with nothing more than a kerb to go at.

I am looking at science to come up with a vaccination against dyspraxic tendencies and I would be perfectly happy if it came combined with something to counter being a total liability. Protection against giggling at inappropriate moments would also be appreciated… although I think that sixty-five might be a little too late for me.

When I was younger
So much younger than today
I never needed anybody’s help in any way
But now those days are gone
I’m not so self-assured
Now I find I’ve changed my mind
And opened up the door… Help! – The Beatles (Lennon/McCartney)

…And so, after the ego-boosting trip of my flu jab, I rolled up yesterday for my Covid booster and, disappointingly, not one person questioned my entitlement to receive it. I had obviously aged overnight. I wore a short-sleeved shirt, the nurse was jolly and friendly and it was all over in seconds – a million miles away from the hullaballoo of paperwork and facemasks that accompanied the first vaccination just thirty months ago. Despite the weight of knowing that I do, after all, look every bit as old as I am, I felt smug on my walk home. My left arm was still a little sore from the flu jab and I had no doubt that by today, my right arm would be similarly sore, but I could cope with that: the chances are that whatever illness should befall me this year, severe covid should not over-concern me. Super-boosted, like Peter Parker, I am Covid Man: what has just bitten me has made me superhuman.

Which is why the super-nausea I felt this morning came as such a surprise. I seldom feel sick and even more infrequently do I succumb to the whole vile tumult of actually being sick – the blank refusal to let whatever has gone down, reappear, almost always prevails. But this morning… oh dear, it felt like it could be a close call. I did not do the dreadful deed, but lordy, it felt like I ought to. Everyone always says, ‘Just do it. Get it over with’, but I can’t do that. I would honestly rather feel sick for a month than actually be sick for thirty seconds. That was just not going to happen. In my world, what goes down stays down and bugger the consequences.

So, bloody mindedly, I did what I always do in such circumstances and steadfastedly refused to change my routine. I drank coffee – unadulterated and black, I am not a complete idiot – I ate toast swamped in a thickness of butter that left my statins atrophying in their bubble pack and I told myself that it was all in my head, but it wasn’t. It was in the pit of my stomach and it was knocking very loudly on my Lower Esophageal Sphincter with something that felt like a sledgehammer. I felt sure that I must have drunk or eaten something untoward – like a whole rancid cow from the feel of it – but for the life of me I couldn’t think what. So I Googled and, lo and behold, I found that after sore arm, stiff arm and headache, the most common side-effect of the Pfizer injection is nausea. Well, it’s a small price to pay I suppose…

I walked the kids to school and then I listlessly kicked around the house whilst my stomach performed the kind of routine that would net Simone Biles a cricket score and I ignored it the best I could, until ignoring it became just that little bit easier and, although I couldn’t face lunch as such, I did slurp some soup like a proper old man and I really did feel better for it. By the time I walked to pick the kids up from school, I was pretty much the old me. The one that not even a very slightly sore arm could bring down…

Tag: Peter Parker

Help!

Better for it