FDA Approves New Vaccine for Shingles and... I'll Admit I Have No Idea What Shingles Are

(CNN)A new adult vaccine has received a double thumbs-up from the American federal health system. On the heels of Friday's Food and Drug Administration approval of Shingrix, a new vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline for the prevention of shingles, a federal committee of immunization experts voted Wednesday to recommend Shingrix for all Americans 50 and older.

Original story here.

Am I alone in having no fucking idea what a shingle is? You could put four photos in front of me and offer me a million dollars if I could point you to a shingle, and I would get it wrong.

It has taken up until me writing this to realize that a shingle probably doesn’t even have anything to do with your shins. Does it? If it does you can stop reading because I know what it is.

In my mind a shingle is when a piece of your shin starts to look like a slate of roofing in some gross skin infection type of way. I don't know why. I don’t know how I got this idea in my head, or who to blame for it. But I honestly equate shingles closest to Greyscale, that made-up disease from Game of Thrones. I have no excuse for this, my parents are doctors, and I have access to Web MD. In fact, I’ve probably already looked up the definition and just forgotten it. I’ve just wiped my memory clean of it and returned to this ridiculous default belief of it being some hideous deformity, and for that I’m sorry. All I know is that if you tell me you have shingles, you better wash your fucking hands before you touch me because I saw how that shit went down on Game of Thrones- and that won’t be me.

P.S. I now know (temporarily) that shingles is a skin rash. I also now know that I’m definitely going to get it. Fuck. Welcome to blog life.