My first COVID shot

My COVID shot experience from yesterday:

I'm sharing this because I know some people are hesitant to get the shot.

I received my first shot yesterday at approximately 11:35 am because I am employed by the local school district.

No anaphylactic symptoms.

Within four hours, I did feel fatigue and body aches severe enough that I just went and laid in my bed. My body felt like I had the flu, but my head did not. (You know when you are really sick you get that brain fog where you just fall asleep and don't care if you die.)

Today I feel my normal 47-year-old aches and pains.

Since I spent a lot of time in my car yesterday waiting for the shot, I had plenty of time to think. 

Here are some of those thoughts:

I. I don't know what is in the vaccine

A lot of people say things like, "I don't know what is in the shot; I'm not putting that in my body."

That isn't an unacceptable reason, really. 

What is unacceptable is that I ate an english muffin with peanut butter, drank my coffee with flavored creamer, and took an antihistamine and my Lexapro yesterday morning before I went to get my shot, and I do not know what is in all those things that I put into my body.

I put toothpaste in my mouth; I don't know what is in that.

I rubbed deodorant on my armpits, and I have no clue what is in that canister.

The argument that you may have about not knowing what is in a vaccine falls apart when you realize that you don't know what is in ANY of the stuff you regularly put into or on your body.

II. Chemicals aren't natural

Chemicals are totally natural; most of them derive naturally in the earth (or in space).

Everything that is in the world came from the world (or space).

We often combine lots of natural things to make synthetic things. And here is where we go back to the foods, beverages, and medications I mentioned above, most of which are a combination of natural things and synthetic things that I happily and without any thought put into my body every day.

III. I'm not taking this vaccine to avoid sickness

I don't look at any vaccine as something that is 100 percent guaranteed. Nothing is 100 percent guaranteed.

I think of a vaccine as insurance. I hope I don't get sick, but if I do, I hope the vaccine keeps me from getting so sick that I end up hospitalized or dying.

That is the ultimate goal, especially with a virus that is so weird and new that doctors have no real idea why some old people get it and die and others get it and are fine. Why do some younger people get it and die? Why do some people get it and have extremely long-term complications?

They don't know.

So I'm not getting the COVID shot to avoid getting the sniffles or even achiness and fatigue and a big freaking headache.

I don't have car insurance because I may get a little $200 ding in my bumper; I get car insurance because if I get my car totaled, I've got more protection.

I insure my house not because I may get a small roof leak or I the plumbing may clog. I get it to have some protection should my house CATCH ON FIRE.

I have medical insurance not for the strep throat or the ingrown toenail. I have it for the unexpected appendicitis.

IV. Would you take the shot to go on vacation?

Someone I know who is a nurse in a nursing home said that she was hesitant to get the shot until she realized she would have to have it in order to go on a cruise this coming summer.

And when she realized it could jeopardize her vacation she knew that her "reasons" for not wanting the shot were bullshit.

I thought this was a great litmus test for whether a person really has legitimate concerns or bullshit concerns about a shot.

If you travel to certain parts of the world, you are supposed to get immunizations.

In 2022, N and I will hopefully be going to Ecuador as part of a school trip. These are the shots we'll need, and I will happily get them if it means I get to safely go visit another part of the world.

So.....

I didn't feel great last night, but I know it was my immune system having a response to the vaccine making it so that if I meet the COVID virus "in the wild" my body will have a memory of what it is and how to fight it. 

And I'm happy to do it if it helps me avoid hospitalization and helps keep other people whose are older, younger, weaker, stronger, whatever a little bit safer.