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My Minnesota hometown made the national news in 1995 for losing one teen to meningitis, in an outbreak that put at least 6 more in the hospital. Maybe you saw Michael Osterholm on TV in the 2020-21 pandemic. Back in ’95, he came to Mankato to coordinate the Minnesota Department of Public Health response. That was his job then. They quickly organized a vaccine campaign for 30,000, involving the Army Reserve.
Twenty-seven years earlier, I joined 9th-grade football, and there were enough of us to form 2 teams, the Lions and the Bears (both namesakes of rivals Minnesota Vikings rivals). Out of 60 kids, there were maybe 4 of us under 130 pounds. What was I thinking? One coach didn’t like “long” hair, or something, and decided to make an example out of me. My response may have caused a life-threatening illness.
One crisp Friday in mid-October, in driving rain, I got so pissed that I lost my mind and took my rage out on the dummies, and on other players. At the end of every practice, we all ran two laps around the field, drenched with cold rain and mud. I finished 30 yards ahead of the whole pack and heard “Good Job, Johnson” as I passed him on the way to the locker room. That was the end of my football “career”.
Two days later, during a Vikings game, my doctor drove to his clinic next to our practice field to meet us. By 6 o’clock Sunday, I was in the hospital, with a horse syringe full of antibiotics in my butt, fighting the same disease that killed a kid in 1995. Between that night and the end of May, I missed 40 days of school from 3 more illnesses. ONE teacher gave me an incomplete. No sympathy at all. Had to go to summer school. Nice.
Cold Rain. Stiff neck. Good doctor. Science. I survived. Listen to this…
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