In which I have the best bout of typhoid fever ever.

Typhoid vaccine, unlike your garden variety bugs, is administered in a series of four pills, each with a teeny payload of weakened bacteria. 95% of people pass through the 8-day regimen without a fuss, but my overachiever body loves being an outlier, so after my first pill I was lying out flat with a cold sweat, nausea, and (sorry) vomit. Then, like Paul, I had to finish the course. Pill two was fine. Three was horrid. Episodic pain/nausea every half hour. Four was not-shabby. Couldn’t walk to school all week, which was propitious because of persistent precipitation.

On the bright side, real typhoid is worse by whole orders of magnitude. I could still go to class. Almost passed out in one, but otherwise Gucci. And I know that the vaccine worked for sure… because the gross side effects of wrecked homeostasis are all to make the proper antibodies against this microbe. So I’m still a proponent of vaccination.

Why am I sharing this? One, to gross you out. Two, to illustrate a point. Some pains are growing pains. I don’t think anything we go through is in vain. And if we never went through anything difficult, it’d be hard to get to anything worthwhile. These sufferings are just side effects of a process that makes us stronger, and reminds us of what is worthwhile. Nausea is more or less public enemy number one as symptoms go, but if it means I turn into a typhoid-immune person, I’m all for it!

I wish we could have vaccines for tons of things, big and small. Heartbreak. Moving. Dementia. Car accidents. Leaving God. Termites in the walls. Can one vaccinate against divorce? What about growing apart from an old friend? What about holes in well-loved t-shirts, especially over where the pesky jeans grommet rubs against it? If only things worked the same way, where you put in a small deposit of suffering and guarantee a future without further suffering.

Paul’s consideration of suffering is much less self-centered, however. In Romans 8:18, he considered his sufferings (which include shipwrecks, imprisonment, beatings, rejection, stonings, starvation, snakebites, and more) not worth comparing to the coming glory to be revealed upon us. In context, that is the completed growth of the sons of God, and the revelation of such ones far supercedes any pain we can encounter in this life. If our sufferings can contribute to this goal, they are more than worthwhile! Indeed, they’re worth fighting for the privilege to undergo.

Side note on etymology: denim comes from serge de Nîmes, where this fabric (toile) was sourced for American toilers.

Nîmes isn’t the only place to source denim, though: it also came from Genoa, Italy (Fr: Gênes). That’s why we call them jeans. With a J, because English ruins everything.

A third geographic origin of this cloth was Dongri, a port village of Bombay. That’s right, spidey-senses. Dungarees. It was Hindi before it was indie.

Side note on etymology research:

i(e)=e^(1/t)

i = how interesting something is to you as a function of the fundamental interesting-ness of subject

e = constant, fundamental interesting-ness of subject

t = time until deadline/final exam

Somehow I have two tabs open on renal pathology and physiology, one on etymology memes for reconstructed phonemes, one on The Anglish Moot, and one on Medium. My final exams are pending. We move in less than a day. What is wrong with me.

Update 15 minutes later: I’m listening to Despacito in Urdmurt. Glomeruliglomerulonephritisglomerulosclerosisglomerulosclomerulo.

Update the next day: all the big items of the house are officially moved! In driving rain, too. Never have I appreciated how loved my family is. So many friends showed up to help that we moved everything in less than two hours.

Update after five days: all is done, all is well. Can’t believe I made it. Tiredness in my bones, but also joy. The first year of medical school is over! Summer awaits.

I’ll be out of the country for the next two months, and my updates will be contingent on receiving wifi, so stay tuned! But don’t hold your breath. See you on the other side.