My Little Biological Weapon

On loving someone who could kill you

It’s surprisingly easy to feel normal again.

I go to sporting events and concerts if they’re important enough to me. I go to restaurants and meet friends for coffee. For the most part, I’m able to live like most people. Unless you knew I’d had an organ transplant and am severely immunocompromised, you’d probably never guess.

It remains true, though, that I’m taking a sizable risk each time I do these things. Five years in, the calculus for what’s worth the risk has become second nature. I just know what I’m going to do. And so, the underlying condition, the risk that sits at the core of my life, lurks quietly beneath the surface.

Then something cuts through all that calm—a rupture, a reminder—and shatters the routines I’ve built to stay safe.

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This morning, our son (known online only as ‘McNugget’) got his one-year vaccinations—MMR, varicella, polio, the whole viral bouquet—and promptly became a walking, giggling biological weapon. To most of you, the biggest risk he presents is that, lately, he’s been keen on biting people’s kneecaps. It’s terribly painful, but it passes.

But me? The little man could give me polio. I don’t know about you, but I’ve managed to avoid polio for forty-four years, and I’d rather not let my own child break the streak. Further, no matter how many times well-meaning fools tell me that measles used to be a childhood rite of passage, I can’t help but see the reintroduction of a deadly disease that we had effectively eliminated, for no damned good reason. If by “rite of passage” you mean, “hey, it didn’t kill him like those other kids,” sure. I guess that counts. Same way childbirth was a rite of passage back in 1900, when one in a hundred births ended with a dead mother.

So, here we are at the intersection of keeping the boy safe and me alive, and nothing feels normal, again.

My wife and I knew this day was coming for over a year, yet we didn’t grasp what it would mean. It’s easy to think: Okay, I’ll be careful. Won’t pick him up or change diapers. Simple enough.

But it’s not like that.

It means not being on the same floor of the house as him. It means, effectively, being confined to my office and the guest room. McNugget loves to run around the living room, kitchen, and dining room, touching everything, and—as toddlers are wont to do—putting everything possible into his mouth. A playground for shedding viruses. And Audra will be on double duty. Changing every diaper when childcare isn’t here. Washing every bottle. Handling the (thankfully rare) 4 a.m. wailing sessions. She’ll be around him so much, I won’t be able to sleep in the same bed or spend much time with her unless she showers, washes her hair, changes clothes, etc.

The infectious disease doctors say the safest thing is to separate myself for four weeks. I asked for the bare minimum and was told two weeks.

We’ll see how brave I’m feeling by then.