Getting Shot (With the COVID Vaccine)

April 5th was the first day in my state that the vaccine is available to the broader public (ie: not just the elderly and healthcare staff).  Thanks to the diligence of a friend, I was able to get an appointment at a downtown clinic for that exact day.  

I had only about a week's notice, so I tried to spend the time preparing my body for the panic attack the vaccine would be inducing.  Unfortunately, my poor mental health also had an opinion, and so I was only partially prepared for the injection.  

The ideal would have been to have a month to prepare, with regular light exercise, plenty of water, good nutritious food, extra Vitamin C every day, religious tooth care, and a steady dosage of the zinc-elderberry lozenges I use to prop up my immune system when I'm sick.  

Instead, I probably achieved less than a third of those preparations in the week between getting an appointment and the day of the injection.  I'm not a severely at risk human, and my immune system is usually pretty good at its job, but given what the actual virus can and has done to autistic people, I wanted to be very safe about it.  

I woke up that morning feeling anxious and under-rested.  It was storming outside, with distant thunder to prod me awake about a half hour before I'd normally get up.  I stayed in bed for a full hour out of protest.  But eventually I got up because I wanted to at least make an effort at being prepared for the day.  

I put on comfortable but stylish clothes, favorites of mine delivered by a shopping service.  Then a dose of vitamin C (1000 mcg, the usual daily limit).  Then, begrudgingly, brushed my teeth.  Good digestion (which affects your immune system) starts in the mouth, and brushing and cleaning between your teeth is very important.  The experience is still vastly unpleasant to me, though, and I haven't found a way to make it a positive experience yet.  

Next was chopping fruit and preparing green salads.  I'd see my parents (both fully vaccinated) for lunch before the actual shot, and it wouldn't do to not be prepared.  I'd been slightly adventurous this week in the fruit department: yellow dragonfruit and small yellow mangos accompanied a more typical European pear.  Thankfully my parents are supportive of my interest in diverse food.  

It was a bit of a crunch between lunch time and getting downtown to the vaccine clinic, but we managed to find parking (which was free, yay) in a parking structure just underneath the converted convention center.  We were given directions upon entering, which basically told us to text "here" to a particular number, and enter the building when texted back, or when our appointment time arrived.  Despite being 15 minutes early, we were immediately texted to go in.  

Upon entering the building, the first thing they did was check our temperatures with handheld forehead thermometers.  Since neither of us were running a fever, we were ushered in and offered hand sanitizer.  Once that was applied, it was down the stairs and into the convention hall proper.  Which looked like this:

Everything was very neatly laid out for maximum efficiency, with probably hundreds of volunteers politely guiding you in case the arrows and lanes weren't sufficient.  All the volunteers were, at worst, blandly polite.  Some were significantly more cheerful, and a few even thanked us for coming in.  There was no immediate sign of our friend, who we'd planned to meet up with for the event.  

Mostly what I noticed was that it was very easy to go on autopilot and simply follow the clear signs, lanes, and verbal directions.  We later called this "being in the flow," and I experienced it as something akin to being in a waking trance or a near-dreamlike state.  At every step of the way, you knew where you should be going and what you should be doing.  There was no need for conscious thought, because at the slightest uncertainty, there was immediately a staff member to tell you where to go.  

This actually made it rather difficult to take pictures, but I still did, because it's kind of a once (or twice, I guess) in a lifetime experience.  

Several friends of mine referred to this event as Vaccine-Con, which isn't the worst name for it, in all honesty.  It's definitely getting the foot traffic of a convention, and it's in a convention hall.  Seems fair enough to me.  The major difference is that the focus of this is health, and the focus of most conventions is making money.  

There were four lanes like this in the convention center.  Note the stickers placed 6 feet apart, the extra-wide hallways, and the open ceiling.  Also note the chairs placed strategically for people that don't do well standing in line.  In truth, we maybe spent like 10 minutes queuing, if that, but I can imagine the place being significantly busier at other points in the day.  Particularly with the previous eligible group, which was mainly comprised of the elderly.  

Getting to the front of the line afforded you this view, where a staff member would give you some short paperwork and have you sign in and verify essential details on the computer.  It took us maybe a couple minutes.

Once past the final registration, it was time to stand in line for a booth.  Each contained a nurse or someone trained in administering the shots.  The staff that gave us our first dose (Pfizer, one of the two mRNA vaccines) is named Kristin.  She seemed weary, but in reasonably good humor.  I'd honestly assume there were hundreds of people before us, and maybe it was near the end of her shift.  At any rate, she checked our information and then gave us each our shot.

I went first.  I didn't look at the needle going into my skin, because there's no need to make the poor nurse's life any harder than it already was.  I did watch my spouse get his shot, though.  The vaccine liquid was perfectly clear, which was weird to me for some reason. I didn't even bleed, and barely felt the shot at all.  She gave us a bandaid and then we were on our way again.

I left the booth feeling jubilant (one step closer to being done with this pandemic!), but also a little fuzzy in the head.  My doctor tells me I'm extraordinarily sensitive to changes in my system.  I have the ability to tell, based on the sensation in my stomach, whether something I've eaten or drunk was alcoholic.  Same with painkillers, for some reason.  So it could be simply that I could tell my system was reacting to the "invader" vaccine.  Ooor it could be a trick of my imagination.  

Either way, once the shots were done, it was time for the 15 minute cool-off period.  This was implemented because on rare occasions, people would go into anaphylactic shock after receiving the vaccine.  You really don't want that happening while the person is trying to drive home, or on a bus.  So instead they parked us in seats with a big clock to help us track the time.  Bathrooms were also available as needed.  

I've tried to keep people's faces out of my pictures on account of not having their permission to appear in this blog, so you can't see the row of double-chairs for couples or pairs of friends that went together.  My spouse and I settled into one of those to wait out the 15 minutes.  It was a pretty uneventful wait, thankfully.  We did manage to meet up with our friend, and so we spent most of the time just chatting about whatever happened to be on our minds.  

Once the 15 minutes was up, we followed the obvious signs (and verbal directions) to leave Vaccine-Con.  

I can't begin to describe how big this place was... which I guess makes sense since it's a full-on convention center.  Still, as you can see, there was a lot of unused space.  We were lauded with various signs on the way out.  

The "in the flow" effect applied here, too.  My pictures aren't great because of that.  

From top to bottom, the signs read:

💗 You did it.

Keep up the good work.  Please remember:

Wash your hands.

Socially distance.

Wear a mask.

💗 Thank you.

I'll return here in about three weeks for my second dose, which we were able to schedule online within an hour of receiving the first dose.  

The side effects I experienced from this first shot were soreness, mind fog, malaise, and systemic inflammation, which I can now recognize as my neck being crickey-crackity, as well as swollen joints.  The inflammation could be treated with ibuprofen, though I opted not to this time since it wasn't that bad.  My spouse and friend only reported soreness in the arm.  

The second shot is said to be harder on the system than the first, so I may take that day off and just prepare to be dead on my feet.  It's either that, or I won't have symptoms at all, and I'll have a strong suspicion that I was an asymptomatic carrier sometime last year.  I can't decide which concept I dislike more, but thankfully I have zero choice in the matter.  Either I got it on one of the shopping trips I did during the pandemic, or I didn't.  

It'll still be two weeks after the second shot before I can really say "I'm safe and won't need to go to the hospital for this."  Even after that, it's still possible for me to carry the coronavirus asymptomatically and infect people who can't be vaccinated or refuse to do so. So I'll have to keep washing my cloth mask and expecting to wear it in the long term.  

Still, it'll be a relief.  Both for me and for the people that care about me.