Am I the only person still on lockdown?

Seems like it.

Yesterday I went for a Rituxan infusion. For my pemphigus foliaceus. I need two every six months, otherwise my skin starts becoming unglued, literally, and…

The doctor came to talk to me. Yup, you sit in a chair in the infusion center, where people get chemotherapy, and every once in a while a doctor or social worker or a pharmacist comes to speak with you. It’s usually routine, but the key is…if you want something, try to come across like an intellectual. These jobs are so rote, that otherwise they punch the clock on you, these professionals are dying for an interesting conversation, and if you provide it, they’ll give you as much time as you need, in my case nearly half an hour.

Rituxan negates the flu shot. They don’t even bother to give the flu shot to someone who’s been treated with Rituxan. You don’t form antibodies, it’s a waste of time. So, when it comes to the coronavirus vaccine?

Rituxan is given to lymphoma patients. They get it every other week, ad infinitum, but in a much lower dose. I get about seven times as much, which really just means I’ve got to sit in the chair longer. They’re padded chairs, not that they all work perfectly. And you can’t raise the footrest and lower the back independently, they work together, which means it’s hard to get comfortable, especially after they give you the Benadryl and you get restless leg.

It’s not an exact science. The issue is how fast they can drip the drug in without a reaction. If you’re lucky, they can do it in two and a half hours or so, but it could be four and a half. And whenever you start anew, they discard the old markers and go slow again, so it turns into an endurance test, primarily because you can’t get comfortable, and you’re out of it. Not completely, but you have trouble concentrating, reading the newspaper, watching a show… Oh, there are TVs, but who’d want to watch that crap, mindless. But I do bring an iPad, they have good Wi-Fi, but I’ve realized it’s useless to start something new. So I end up surfing on my phone, irrelevant interests, to pass the time.

Now to tell you the truth, I figured out a more comfortable position yesterday. With a pillow behind me and my foot on the tower. Yes, everybody has a tower, kind of like a hatrack. The bags drip into this machine that adjusts the flow rate and then the tube enters your arm. But it’s not only the Rituxan, but saline too, which means…you have to go to the bathroom. Which is both a blessing and a curse. You’re not motivated to get up, but when you do it’s like going on vacation, checking out the sights, but in this covid era, you’re uptight about touching the toilet, the sink, the light switch, the handle… But now, if you know where to look, there’s a bottle of hand sanitizer you can use after the fact, which assuages one’s anxiety. And the truth is, you like to feel safe, but at UCLA hospital they’ve had covid infections, they don’t want to advertise it, but they have, so you don’t want to let down your guard (although I was at Cedars center, separate from the hospital). Meanwhile, the doctor never lowers his mask and puts on rubber gloves before he touches you, and sanitizes thereafter, they’re taking no risks.

So when it comes to Rituxan and the vaccine… Well, they just don’t know. But since I’m having a high level conversation with the doctor, intentionally, I reference that this vaccine works differently, at least the two now available in the U.S., so… This is one of the benefits of being informed, you never know when the knowledge will become useful. Most of it is not, but some of it is, and you can’t stop the conversation for research. And the doctor says this may be a factor, the way the vaccine works, and covid is different from the regular flu, despite what those on one side of the political fence might say.

So what’s a poor boy to do, other than to play in a rock and roll band?

Well, get the vaccine and then test to see if you’ve got antibodies. As for that test…he didn’t know if there was one, or which one to take, that I’d have to confer with my internist. In other words, the more you know, the less you know, but living in darkness can impact your life, literally, when it comes to the coronavirus.

And you do know the vaccine is not immediately effective, right? I didn’t. I thought you got inoculated and then BOOM!, you were in the clear. But the truth is you’ve got to build up those aforementioned antibodies, and that could take weeks. But they say after the second shot, you should be good. But now they’re saying let’s inoculate everybody once, I’m down with that, and then see if there’s enough juice for the second shot for everybody.

Meanwhile, in 1947 they gave 6 million New Yorkers the smallpox vaccine in a month, but the city couldn’t even inoculate a hundred fifty thousand people with the covid-19 vaccine. What happened to America, the supposed “greatest country in the world.” Talk to anybody who’s been anywhere else, it’s quite good, in some ways even better than the U.S., but our country has been infected by ignorance and jingoism, to the point where if you’re informed you’re a pariah (but being informed pays dividends, as per my doctor interaction above).

So, it seems everybody is tired of staying inside. They don’t know someone who’s died, so they won’t, they’re immune. Where has this attitude come from? Never mind the wackadoodle anti-maskers, the “freedom” constituency, who believe America should have no public safety rules…cough on these people and they have a fit, but don’t ask them to wear a mask!

It’s bad in L.A., really bad. I’d quote the statistics but either you’re here or you’re not. And if you are, you’re informed, but you’ve stayed home and sacrificed too much already. Anne Frank and her family lived inside for years to save their lives, but you can’t even do it for a week, even a day. And what happened to Anne Frank? Someone squealed, she went to a camp, and she died! Of disease! There are certain situations you don’t want to be in, you want to be safe, but everybody feels safe today.

Only essential workers can get it. You can visit your family, because everybody’s “reasonable.” Meanwhile, they’re turning people away from the hospital in L.A., it’s a bad time to have a heart attack. Yes, you want to choose when you have a health issue these days.

And people are burned out on flattening the curve, they feel it’s like the boy who cried wolf, they think if they get sick there’ll be a bed for them in the ICU…good luck!

And if so many recover, that means if they get it they won’t die, even though at last count 354,000 have.

And then there are the long termers, who still don’t have their sense of taste and smell, months later. And those who’ve become psychotic. Oh, that’s their problem, compassion has left the country, now it’s every person for themselves, and if you just put on binders, put your head in the sand, you’re immune.

But you can’t say anything negative about our country or its inhabitants, because it’s the GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!

Meanwhile, Jim oversees entrants to the lodge at Aspen Highlands. People refuse to observe limits, because they’re rich and the rules don’t apply to them. And I was planning to get the vaccine and immediately go skiing but now…the vaccine might not work for me and I don’t want to play Russian roulette with my life.

You don’t want to hear all this. You want to be ignorant, it helps your mood. Kinda like not knowing about how Rituxan affects vaccines…what you don’t know can’t hurt you, ONLY IT CAN!

And if you get sick, no one cares about you. That’s today’s America.

Thanks for letting me piss in the wind, I know what I say will have no impact.