https://youtu.be/t2mU6USTBRE?t=143
I got my first shot about two weeks ago. Someone should be handing out stickers that say, “I’ve been shot!” I am sure they are somewhere, but not in Virginia.
How did I get to sign up in Virginia? I’m fat[1]. My BMI is 27 point something. I mean, I have lived with this fluffy state, give or take 20 pounds, since I crossed into my 20s. So I am used to it. As noted previously, I walked 5 million plus steps in 2020. I have always loved to walk, ellipt, swim, paddle and move. I am the kind of person who likes to use the exercise equipment I buy. I love walking in the rain, dancing and singing – all at the same time.[2]
Virginia is following the CDC recommendations on if a condition WILL or MAY contribute to severity and morbidity of COVD-19. So, I became eligible to schedule a vaccine appoint due to the “bad” choices I made before the pandemic. I use quotation marks on “bad” because BMI is such a random measurement to base so much of our medical decisions on, but that is another letter.
We are creatures of habit in so many ways. Even though multiple studies have shown that BMI is not the best quick measure to indicate health, even though the person who determined BMI was doing curve fitting and said he didn’t think it should be used as a health guideline, and even though we know that a single number doesn’t mean everything, BMI is often the first thing used to separate the masses into two groups: healthy and un-healthy. Humans are wired to respond to stimulus the same way over and over again.
Sometimes, being an Xer, it seems to me that my entire life has been a series of gates and choices where we were told to make the “right” choice or else. We grew up living life as a choose-your-own adventure book where one assumes the choice controls the outcome. Eat the food pyramid and you will be healthy. Exercise every day, and you will be healthy. Don’t smoke, and you will be healthy. Drive the speed limit, and you will be safe.
I am sure that the people writing the CDC recommendations are doing the best they can. Each state gets to make its own rules on how to implement them. I have tried to explain this to my colleagues in Europe, and they just look at me strangely. Apparently, it is hard for them to imagine getting a vaccine in 2021 because of a shortage and very restrictive requirements to qualify.
I am still glad I got my first shot[3].
I would say there are no right choices, but I think that is too simple. We fool ourselves into thinking by making a choice (right or wrong), we are exerting control over the outcome. But we should maybe turn that around in our heads. By making a choice, we are pushing towards an outcome we like. We do not have the power to be deterministic in reaching the outcome, only in direction and force. Where we end up will always depend on not just our choices, but the forces we do not know about and cannot control[4].
The conclusion I have come to after the past 13 months is that “they” had a terrific ad campaign, but maybe not so much reality on their side. What is never made clear in the public health messages is you can do everything “they” say, and still die. I have said for years, “You can live forever, or it can feel like forever.”
[1] Although I prefer the term fluffy.
[2] One benefit of mask wearing is people can’t see my lips moving as I sing along to whatever Taylor Swift song is playing on my headphones.
[3] I got my shot as soon as I was eligible. I signed up BigOne, who comes in BMI of around 26, as soon as I could. Husband already qualified through BMI and a letter from his job. I did not wait to let other people go first once some authority made the choice to let us sign up. Fun Fact – on the sign up they never asked which condition you had or asked for any proof.
[4] When I started writing this, I had guilt that I could get the shot based on “bad” choices like that extra glass of wine or a piece of carrot cake. Things change quickly, so those bad choices ended up only adding to my getting my shot a few days before my perfectly health, good-choice making friends.