It is inevitable, at a conference or on a vacation–when you are subject to timetables, are liable to be on your feet more than usual, and want to make a good aesthetic impression–that your feet should choose to get blisters. Always happens to me.

And so earlier this week I found myself buying bandaids. It has been a very long time since I’ve bought bandaids, but there was a period in my life when I was buying them on the regular–twice a month or sometimes even twice a week.

This period of my life was during the Great Bacteria Purge, the time when I woke my immune system back up and together we tackled the hordes of invading creatures that had taken residence pretty much everywhere in my body.

When your immune system is killing bad bacteria and pushing it up and out of your skin, you need a lot of bandaids. Some large, some tiny. Some ended up working better with just a gauze pad and some nurses tape (that 3M blue medical tape is pure magic–it absolutely will not budge and yet it doesn’t irritate the skin at all).

When it comes to blisters, my favorites are the bandaid toughstrips variety, because they stay in place and the rough fabric helps to grip against shoes or socks. Although I must say the new “skin” type of bandaids are giving the toughstrips some fierce competition: they do all the same things, plus the adhesive is nicer and they’re thinner overall.

Anyway. There are times when you need the brand name bandaids (usually when you need it to stay in place), but I came to appreciate the need for off-brand bandages as well.

Not only are they cheaper, which helps when you have more expensive medical bills to pay, the adhesive is weaker. Sometimes this is a bad thing, but it is a feature, not a bug, when you have a bandage that must be changed multiple times a day. Because the adhesive is weaker, it doesn’t irritate your skin anymore.

{Even if the glue doesn’t bother your skin, the physical stress of peeling off a bandaid can cause problems when you do it enough times in a row.)

Yes, I have opinions on bandaids.

But what is nicer is buying bandaids now–knowing that I don’t have to buy them, and realizing how far I’ve come from the time I had to changes bandages 3 or 4 times a day. Maybe even more.

I know a lot about bandaids because I spent a lot of time with bandaids, and now that I interact with bandaids like a normal healthy person again, I can look back and say: “Man am I glad I don’t have to go through that again.”

Bandaids as a symbol of freedom.