As of the 12th of May 2021, I am fully vaccinated against COVID-19. I would again like to thank Allie Goulding for being instrumental in helping me and many, many others in my area find an appointment. It’s important that as many people as possible get vaccinated and simply not being able to find an appointment is the unfortunate reality of plenty of people.
My first dose of the Pfizer vaccine was on April 19th. I arrived at the site a little early even though the email said “do not arrive early”. They still let me in. After being check in, I drove through a parking lot into a tent. After providing some info I got the first shot in my left arm, right in my car. I was fine at first, they had me pull into a certain spot of the parking lot and watched me for 15 minutes. After that, I drove home, but while turning the steering wheel I did notice some pain in that arm. It only got worse, and my whole arm got pretty swollen and painful, but at the end of the 3rd day it started to fade.
Appointment for second dose came around, but I got an email when I was already on my way that the site had been closed due to “inclement weather”. It was… barely sprinkling, but I said okay, the email says I can come back tomorrow. So I did, and received the second dose on May 12th. Drove home without too much arm pain. When I got, home, though, I went to sleep. It wasn’t even the afternoon, but I fell asleep like I’d been knocked out. I went in and out of sleep for several hours, and I had to stay home the next day to do the same. Today (Friday the 14th), I woke up and went about my day as normal, but my head was still a bit foggy. I suspect it will subside by tomorrow.
Honestly, the arm pain might have been worse than the extreme fatigue. That said though, these side effects are nothing compared to the reality of the dangers of COVID-19. They’re not even side effects – I’m no scientist, but I know that it’s a normal immune system response to the mRNA vaccine. I don’t know if I ever had COVID-19, but I do have the misfortune of knowing family members and close friends that suffered through it. It’s hard to talk about, but at least one family member died.
Every step of this pandemic has been terrible. It’s super important that every eligible person gets vaccinated to prevent any more suffering, and ideally to move the world back to some degree of normalcy.
As for me, I’m going to wait two weeks before doing anything special. I’m thinking about going to buy a BLÅHAJ from Ikea as a joke to go along with this meme…
We’ll see about what I’ll do after that. Of course, I’m going to be playing it safe for the foreseeable future, staying home most of the time and wearing a mask in public.
Get vaccinated if you can. Continue to practice the precautions. Then hopefully we will be able to see the end of this.