Friday, February 16, 2024

wild

I recently learned that my father never got the polio vaccine. The Cutter Incident happened when he was little and it scared his parents from getting him vaccinated.

My grandfather died of cancer when I was a small child. I had assumed it might have to do with all the chemicals used in farming. At Christmas I was looking at old photos. There was a picture of my dad and his sister on a hilltop by a lake. Dad said that was taken while they were in Colorado. He said his mom would take them sight-seeing while his dad visited a radon health mine for arthritis.

*2026 update: This Christmas, dad described symptoms that plagued his father for years that made it sound like grandpa had H. pylori. Huh.