My mother used to leave pincushions all over the place when I was young. She was always mending something to make sure that we kids were well turned-out for school. Occasionally, I would sit on one by mistake – ouch.

I have that feeling again today, but in a good way. Pat and I just received our second dose of shingles vaccine. You need two doses at least two months apart to get the most effective prevention. They do have single doses, but these are not as effective. If you have not had these twin doses, please get them.

And….

We had our upgraded flu shots, not the cheap and free ones. The better vaccine prevents 25% more flu types than the base dosage and I highly recommend that you get this, as well.

And….

The better pneumonia vaccine is out and we were advised to upgrade our old pneumonia vaccination with this substantially improved version. Since many, many people are hospitalized and many die from pneumonia, this was a high priority.

The doctor mentioned a tetanus shot, but I was done and said that we probably had one in the previous 10 years. That is the length of time for which the tetanus vaccine is supposed to last.

I am sure that you are now saying “who cares.” But you really should care. I would like you to be a pincushion too, for selfish reasons. I have not had the flu in 25 years; I have never had pneumonia; and God forbid that I should ever get shingles, as it is a nasty and very painful disease. Pat had a case of shingles AFTER receiving the vaccine and the doctor said that she would have lost her eyesight, had she not gotten the shingles vaccine first. I mentioned this before, but I think that it is worth mentioning again.

So why do I care? Because if you do not get vaccinated, you may end up in the hospital and then you become my problem. You may catch one of the bad viruses in the hospital such as MRSA or C.Diff and then things can get very complicated – for you and for Medipac. We see this every day and I would really prefer my staff to be doing nothing…and you can help.

If you are already travelling or at a winter destination, I would urge you to seek out these vaccines anyway, and now. Do us all a favour! If you don’t get sick then, hopefully, we will not get sick either. Pass it on.

There are dozens of government websites available in both Canada and the United States that beg you to get vaccinated because they save so much health-care money by NOT having to pay to treat you in a hospital.

Just to add a little incentive information, there is a 20-week average waiting period in Canada between seeing a specialist and getting treatment. They obviously forgot the period of time required to get to see a specialist. My waiting period to see a dermatologist is 14 weeks and then add that 20-week wait to get treatment. What a joke! My appointment is in January when I am, of course, away for the winter. Oh, and there are more than one million people on medical waiting lists in Canada.

Don’t get sick is the message! Become a pincushion instead.