My husband and I have just celebrated our first wedding anniversary. To commemorate the joy of finding love for the second time in midlife, I wanted to treat Jeremy to something nice. How about a night and a spa at Hanbury Manor in Hertfordshire, or perhaps the latest piece of Apple tech?
In the end, I splashed out £500 on a private shingles vaccination for my beshert. No, I’m not a meshuggener – in fact, the point of this present is to try to avoid some meshigas later in life, as you will see below.
Before you consider me mean, Jeremy did not just receive one jab for my buck. He got two. In fact, the whole exercise set me back a not inconsiderable £1,000, because I got the matching jab for myself – the idea being this will also benefit my husband in a few years’ time.
Earlier this summer, I went to a medical conference hosted by the Oxford Longevity Project at the city’s esteemed university. One of the speakers at the Smart Ageing Summit was Professor John Todd, who was presenting his findings about a surprising side effect of the Shingrix shingles vaccine.
Being able to avoid a nasty viral infection is important enough, of course. But the prof revealed there was increasing evidence that having the shingles jab can reduce your risk of dementia in later life. His research suggested the vaccine could lower your chances of getting the disease by 20 per cent over seven years, or delay the onset by five to six months.
Now, these findings have not been proven beyond all doubt, and Prof Todd attempted to make that clear to the assembled company. But his reservations were drowned out by the scraping of chairs and slamming of doors as 200 health journalists dashed to the exit to book their jabs. I was among them.
If you are currently aged between 65 and 79, you can get the Shingrix jab on the NHS. If you are younger or older, however, and not immunocompromised, you have to pay for it privately. And the prof had told us that the earlier you have it over the age of 50, the better.
A few days after the conference, I found myself standing in front of my local pharmacist, blowing a sizeable chunk of my month’s earnings. This is a very Jewish present, I thought to myself. At least, in relation to my family, and other Jews I know.
My whole family is obsessed with health, and health-related things. My father is a retired dentist, my brother is a hospital consultant and professor – my brother, a professor of endocrinology! – and my sister-in-law is a GP. I thought I’d escaped from all that by studying English and becoming a journalist, but here I am, specialising in health reporting and buying bloody vaccines for anniversary presents.
Jeremy, my new husband, is a playwright, arguably not a very medical pursuit. But Jeremy is a Jewish New Yorker, so being neurotic about his health in a Woody Allen-esque way is a mandatory part of the job description. It’s not unheard of for Jeremy to start and end the day with a report on the state of his kishkas, and an update on what he believes to be happening to his microbiome. My kitchen now boasts an alarming array of selenium supplements and psyllium husks.
When Jeremy arrived in my life, he noted that my knowledge of Jewish religious practice was somewhat limited. One of the first things he told me about was the Asher Yatzar, the prayer that Orthodox Jews recite after every trip to the bathroom – thanking God for the proper functioning of the body’s “many openings and many cavities”.
The prayer goes on: “It is revealed and known before Your throne of glory that if one of them were to be ruptured or one of them were to be blocked, it would be impossible to survive and stand before You even for a short period of time.” Perfect, I thought: and how apt.
Most of the Jewish people I know are preoccupied with the proper functioning of their openings and cavities – especially compared with my gentile friends, who spend as much time trying to avoid the doctor as Jews do collecting second opinions. I remember that, as some people hotly debated the effectiveness and safety of the first Covid vaccines, Jewish people were already rolling up their sleeves.
This health obsession is especially true of the more senior among the community. I only have to spend ten minutes at my dad’s regular tea parties with his octogenarian friends to know all about their knee replacements, prostate difficulties and latest LDL cholesterol results. It goes on for hours. Though many of my dad’s buddies remain in robust good health, probably on account of all the tests and scans and their defiant refusal to drink alcohol, so common with that generation.
It’s this attempt to remain as fit and independent that was perhaps the main inspiration behind my Shingrix purchase. If Jeremy and I can raise our chances of avoiding Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia down the track, the care-home fees will be cheaper, our children less put-upon, and we won’t have to annoy each other with inane conversation and repetition (at least, more than we do already).
And so, here sit Jeremy and I, two weeks down the track from our shingles booster jabs. Like many one-year-on couples, we spent the anniversary of our wedding in bed. Sadly, however, this wasn’t because of passion renewed. Our upper left arms were just too sore for anything like that, as we lay groaning and sweating with flu-like symptoms while our immune symptoms leapt into action as a result of the jabs.
But at least, when we hit 90, we might be able to remember our wedding day.
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