Get Vaccinated!

Today, I got my second vaccination shot against COVID-19! So in approximately two weeks, I can once again walk around without a mask around. Except, of course, I don’t want to explain to anyone that I’m not an anti-masker, so I’ll likely still be wearing one around in public.

The whole vaccination process has been a bit of a trip, and not super straightforward. So I live in Los Angeles, which is known for their great amazing handling of the pandemic so far, and not that many people have died at all even though I’m pretty sure no one cares and most things remained open throughout our lockdown periods. We were behind on our vaccination appointments, and of course, there were the people who tried to cut in line and access codes gone amok, but then about a month ago, I received a notification from my tutoring company that since we’re in education, we were now eligible for the vaccine!

But appointments were still hard to come by, and I was working another full-time job at the time that meant I couldn’t sit in front of my computer all day refreshing the page and hoping a slot opened up. I was also concerned about side effects. I’d had family and friends get the vaccine before me, and it had taken some of them out for a day, and I wasn’t in a place where I really wanted to miss a day of work. So I waited and checked as often as I could on MyTurn, not realizing there were other options that would probably have worked faster, but whatever, a week later I managed to get an appointment for that very day, and so off I went.

I had prepared all my paperwork in advance: my appointment, my ID, proof of residency, proof of employment in education, etc etc, expecting that it would all be checked upon arrival because none of this was required when I first made the appointment online. But nope, none of it was even looked at apart from my appointment time and my ID. The mass vaccination site I went to was also a drive through site, and so after winding my way along the parking cones, I arrived at the nurse who would give me my shot. I rolled down my window, she jabbed my left arm, and off I went to sit for 15 minutes to make sure I didn’t have any major side effects. Alarmingly efficient considering the intricacies of getting an appointment in the first place.

Immediately, my arm was very very sore, so much so that I thought it might fall off. It hurt to even extend it, and yes, the nurse had warned me this might happen and that it would go away in a day or two. And it did, after my arm went tingly and numb at some points, but almost exactly 24 hours later, the pain faded away to a ghost of reminder that I was (mostly) protected from the coronavirus!

Three weeks later, aka this morning, I went to get my second shot. I had heard that the side effects for the second time were much worse than the first, so I’ve been nervous and trying desperately not to plan anything in the next couple days so I would have time to recover from any potential nightmares. Same process, I went to the site, got in easily and they didn’t check any of my paperwork, although I had the vaccination card from my first shot so that was probably all the information they needed. Followed the cones around the lot, got jabbed in my left arm, mentally prepared for the excruciating pain that never came.

So here we are, hours later, back at home, perfectly fine if a teensy bit unmotivated, but that could just be because it’s Sunday afternoon and who accomplishes things on Sunday afternoons? Especially on Easter?