One unseasonably muggy day after last Christmas, I sat wide-eyed and blinking as my grandmother’s doctor spoke of conspiracy theories. Casket sales increasing, he said. “By thirty, maybe forty percent, since the vaccines came out.”
I want to holler at his administrator, “Are you hearing this?” But I emit just a “hmm” and some hairline perspiration.
Grandma, weighing in at 103 while wearing her sneakers and coat, just nodded and grinned, kneading her thighs with arthritic hands. We were here on a vital matter. This white-coat myth monger holds power. He prescribes opiates, the only class of medication that gives my grandma relief from constant pain in her back and legs.