#i even have my first dose of pfizer just waiting for my second
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1. Vaccine data on preventing disease
I will start this post by summarizing (hopefully as simply as I can) a handful of studies pertaining to how well the vaccines work at preventing disease. I will start by looking at some of the early vaccine studies for the mRNA vaccines (as these are the ones I have researched most heavily). These are older studies done back before vaccine distribution really got big. In fact, I remember doing a journal club meeting on one of these articles sometime late last fall.
The first is one of the Pfizer studies. This one excluded people with compromised immunity which I understand, but angered me greatly when it came out (as a person with compromised immunity). Note that it was designed and funded by Pfizer, though when you look at the protocol and stats it appears well-designed. Like other studies discussed here, infection with COVID-19 used the FDA definition which is a positive test with at least one symptom (which can be basically anything). However, in summary, they found that a 2-dose regimen offered 95% protection against COVID-19 infection per the above definition. (SOURCE)
The second study (on Moderna) was funded by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the study protocol was designed by Moderna with their assistance. This study also used the FDA definition of COVID-19 as a positive test with a symptom and excluded the immune compromised. However, it found that a vaccination was 94.1% efficacious in preventing COVID-19 infection. (SOURCE)
Now that that part is out of the way I wanted to go over some more real-world data; that is, how are these vaccines actually functioning out there? Are they working on a population level like these studies suggest they ought to? Well...
The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from April through July of 2021 shows that vaccination reduces chances of catching COVID 5 fold. This report was important in examining how the vaccines are responding since the delta variant of COVID-19 has started to surge. (SOURCE)
A study out of California found in July of 2021 that COVID-19 infection rates in unvaccinated people are ~5X higher than in vaccinated people. (SOURCE) They do raise the concerns that more studies are needed on how long immunity lasts and whether it will wane.
Another study examined COVID-19 vaccination effectiveness among health care workers, a group that is heavily exposed to COVID-19. They looked at whether the vaccines would prevent disease (in their study, defined as a positive test with at least one symptom). They specifically looked at the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna). The study found "a single dose...to be 82% effective against symptomatic COVID-19 and 2 doses to be 94% effective." (SOURCE)
And before you say "but those were only symptomatic cases!" here is another study also looking at health care workers. This study spanning December 2020-March 2021 basically tested all of their enrollees for 13 weeks and found that those who received 1 vaccine dose had 80% lower chances of getting COVID, while those with 2 doses had a 90% lower chance of getting COVID. This testing was done regardless of symptom burden. (SOURCE)
There is ongoing data collection on how long immunity lasts with some new reports (warning - following study is not yet peer reviewed) suggests that vaccine efficacy may drop to ~85% after 6 months in preventing disease, but efficacy in preventing severe disease remains very high, at 97%. Still, though, 85% is pretty good. (SOURCE)
So here are just a TEENY TINY number of the many studies coming out regarding the vaccines. I could sit here and list so many more, but then this post would be way too bloated and repetitive because they all say the same thing: the vaccine works. This conclusion is both consistent and reproducible, which when talking about scientific studies, means there is some good research backing it up. And before anyone says anything--YES, you can still catch COVID after getting a vaccine. Nothing works 100% of the time. Just because my car has an air bag and I use seat belts doesn't mean I won't get injured if I crash my car. But based on the available data, it works well in preventing infection in a lot of people, and furthermore, there is one other MAJOR benefit to the vaccine which I will discuss below.
2. Vaccine data on preventing severe disease:
Probably the most important realization that has come out of the past few months is our understanding of how robustly these vaccines effect disease course and severity. I am from eastern KY so one of the big hospital systems in my area is Appalachian Regional Health, which spans 13 facilities. According to their latest stats, they have 213 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Of those, 16 are vaccinated. That means a little over 92% of the COVID patients there sick enough to need hospitalized are unvaccinated. For further reference, another major hospital in the region, Pikeville Medical, today reported that 70 of their 88 hospitalized COVID patients (~80%) are unvaccinated, and 20 their 24 (83%) ICU COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated. Another regional hospital, Kings Daughters, had recently reported that 86.5% of those hospitalized with COVID are unvaccinated and 100% of COVID patients in their ICU are unvaccinated. So before I even get to national statistics, you can look at these numbers as already see a trend, and I would hope you can see that these numbers are way too high and too consistent to be coincidence. For sources on these numbers you can visit the ARH, PMC, & KDMC websites or facebook pages where they post their stats (HERE, HERE, and HERE)
Now to post a few studies backing this up:
A recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (we talked about this one earlier) shows that vaccination reduces chances of hospitalization due to COVID-19 by ten fold. (SOURCE) The same report shows that vaccination reduces the risk of death due to COVID-19 by ten fold, as well!
Another recent study that incorporated delta variant data into their research has found that "unvaccinated adults aged ≥18 years are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized compared with vaccinated adults." (SOURCE).
Another study coming out of California, also post-delta surge, showed similar results, with hospitalization rates ~29X higher in unvaccinated people. (SOURCE)
Another study looked at how the vaccine protects adults over age 65, which is going to be a more vulnerable group. It found that adults >65 who received 1 dose of a COVID vaccine saw a 64% reduction in hospitalization if they contracted disease, and those with 2 doses saw a 94% reduction in hospitalization with disease. (SOURCE)
To me, studies like these are really important. What we are seeing over and over again right now is that our health care system is being absolutely flooded by unvaccinated COVID patients who need to be hospitalized. This is stressing the health system in ways it was not built to endure. We do not have enough equipment or staff to manage the volume of patients we are seeing.
Sadly, this does not just affect COVID patients. When a bunch of unvaccinated people get sick and take up ICU beds, that means anyone who gets sick with non-COVID problems, like strokes and heart attacks, also suffer when there aren't beds left for them. For example, your grandmother who developed a bad bacterial pneumonia and is in respiratory distress may die because an unvaccinated COVID-19 patient got there first and took the last vent in the hospital, and there aren’t any ICU beds to transfer her to nearby because the wait lists are all so long because all the ICUs are also filled with unvaccinated COVID patients. I'd argue this is the biggest problem we are facing right now regarding the pandemic even if this problem is invisible to people who don't work in healthcare. Please believe me when I say this: we are drowning, and we are drowning because of unvaccinated COVID patients who are getting severely ill. This is completely unnecessary and avoidable when we are seeing over and over again that vaccination does wonders to prevent you from getting sick enough to need the hospital at all.
Don’t believe me still? I want each of you reading this to visit the webpage for some of your local hospitals. Most of them are posting daily or weekly COVID admission and death statistics. Just take a look at them. Take a look at who is getting admitted and who is dying.
3. Vaccine safety:
Any vaccine, medication, herbal supplement, or what have you that goes into your body carries the risk of an adverse side effect. As a result each of us has to ask ourselves, do the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks? To answer that we need to better understand the risks associated with COVID-19 vaccination, and that means turning back to the data we have available.
According to NYT Vaccine Tracker, there have been 5.73 billion vaccine doses administered worldwide since its release. This generates an abundance of data for us to work with--more than we have for most medications you take every day--in regards to understanding safety profiles of these immunizations. Given that impressive number, we are by no means seeing widespread death or disability popping up due to the vaccine, but let's get more specific. We have seen a couple common possible adverse effects:
Flu-like symptoms: Most common by far is going to be flu-like symptoms or redness/pain at the injection site. This is actually a good side effect because it means that the vaccine is doing what it is meant to do. I won't talk much more about this one because I doubt flu-like symptoms are the reason people are scared of the vaccine. But for most of you, if you have any side effects at all, this will be as bad as it gets. You are more likely to have these symptoms after dose #2.
Anaphylaxis: Anaphylaxis can occur in anyone when you encounter a substance you have a try allergy to. This is going to be a rare side effect (2 to 5 people per million, or 0.00025%), but is also why you are asked to wait 15-30 minutes to be monitored after receiving your vaccine. That way if you show any signs of distress you can be given immediate treatment. Any time you get a vaccine or start a new medicine a severe allergy is a possible reaction, but if you already KNOW that you are highly allergic to something in the vaccine, you should not receive it.
TTP: This is a disorder that causes abnormal clotting or bleeding. It seems to be associated exclusively with the J&J or AstraZeneca adenoviral-vector vaccines based on current data trends. While rare, this is going to be the most serious adverse effect from the immunization. Data suggest the highest risk is for women under 50, but it is still remarkably rare with only 45 confirmed cases of TTP after over 14 million vaccine doses given. This is an incredibly, incredibly low incidence. Of note, however, patients with the actual COVID-19 virus have a SIGNIFICANTLY increased risk of clotting, especially in severe disease. This increased risk may be due to the production of auto-antibodies in response to COVID-19 infection. Summary: your risk of a blood clot is much higher with the actual virus than the vaccine.
Myocarditis/Pericarditis: These are conditions involving inflammation around the heart tissues or heart muscle. There does appear to be an increased rate of myo/pericarditis after vaccination. This is more common in teenaged males who received an mRNA vaccine (such as Moderna or Pfizer). This is also very rare. According to VAERS, 1404 cases of possible myo/pericarditis were reported after vaccination through September of 2021, though only 817 were able to be confirmed. A CDC report from June 2021 estimated about 60 cases of myo/pericarditis may develop per 1 million vaccine series completed (if you are male aged 12-17; otherwise the rate is lower). However, that same report also estimated the prevention of 71 ICU admissions, 2 death, and 215 hospitalizations among that same group per million vaccines given. Again it is a risk-benefit discussion, but here the numbers definitely point to a benefit overall. Vaccine-induced myocarditis and/or pericarditis are generally one-time events with an excellent prognosis, so rarely represent a threat to life. As the authors of the study linked above stated, "The absolute incidence was extremely low, cases were mild, and all patients recovered. Fear of myocarditis or pericarditis should not influence COVID-19 vaccine decisions."
Guillain-Barré Syndrome: This is a disorder of the nervous system that can cause temporary weakness and paralysis. It is commonly seen after immunizations or infections with various pathogens. It has been associated with adenovirus-vector vaccines (J&J, AstraZeneca) at a very low rate (about 0.0008%) with J&J reporting ~100 cases per 12.2 million doses per VAERS data, and 227 cases out of 51.4 million doses given per EU/EEA to the EMA again through June 2021. People with a history of Guillan-barre are more likely to get it again, so your risk is probably slightly higher if you have had issues with this before, so people with this history may want to opt for an mRNA vaccine which has not been associated with this.
4. Addressing Common Concerns
If the vaccine works, why do you feel unsafe if I don't get it? A vaccinated person is more protected from you than if they were not vaccinated, but no vaccine (or medical treatment in general) works 100% of the time, so there is always a risk of spreading disease no matter what. This is true for every single vaccine in history so COVID shots aren't special in this way. The data supports indisputibly that the vaccine reduces the RISK of getting COVID, but does not protect against it perfectly, so people should still use common sense. Also, vaccine works much, much better when everyone gets them, which is why vaccinated people enourage others to get the shot too. Think about it. Most of the studies I linked said the vaccines were in the range of 90-95% effective at preventing disease. If everyone in the room is vaccinated, the chances any of them (with their 90-95% protection) are infected and spreading COVID is going to be lower than a room of unvaccinated people, who have no protection against disease. Think now of yourself as a vaccinated bystander inside each of those rooms. In room 1, there is a low rate of COVID-19 being spread around, so your vaccine-induced immunity is now bolstered by the fact that there is also low spread in the community, making your overall chances of getting sick extremely low. In room 2 there is likely moderate to high spread of COVID-19 virus, meaning that even if you are vaccinated, because your vaccine can never be 100% effective, you sadly still have a chance of getting sick (even if it is lower than it would be if you were not vaccinated). Does that make sense?
If vaccines work, why do I have to wear a mask? Same reason as above. We can get into masks later, but point is, both offer protection against the spread of COVID-19, but neither is 100% surefire perfect immunity. Human bodies just don't work that way, sadly. By using both, you increase your chances of preventing catching or spreading disease more than if you did either one in isolation. Bringing back the car example, a seat belt is good, an air bag is also good, but I'd definitely prefer to get a car that has both a seat belt AND an air bag.
Why is the vaccine not approved for kids? Lacking data on safety and efficacy, as young children were excluded from many of the trials that looked at these vaccines.
We don't have long term safety data. It is unprecedented for an immunization to cause new side effects years later. These shots work by activating your immune system. Any problems they are going to cause will occur surrounding that period of immune activation (meaning, at most a few weeks after you get it). That is why this vaccines typically have any side effects show up within days to weeks of administration. The idea that novel side effects will pop up YEARS later is unlikely. Now, a vaccination may have cause side effect that has long-lasting health implications, such as developing TTP and having a stroke from it, but my point is that will start within weeks of vaccination, not randomly 5 years later after the vaccine has long since left your system. As a result, any side effects from the vaccine are things we will already be seeing right now. The virus, though... I can tell you that scar tissue in lungs doesn't magically vanish, and brain damage from hypoxia doesn't vanish. I can tell you that those who develop a generalized COVID inflammatory response are dealing with symptoms months post-infection. I can tell you that the virus itself is causing irreversible health problems and disability, and we KNOW that right now without waiting another 5 years. And we know that being unvaccinated increases your risk of getting sick enough to have these permanent disabilities. We also don't have time to wait 5-10 years on more data to deal with this problem. Action has to be taken now, or a lot of people won't be alive in 5 years to talk about the long term effects. I wish none of this had ever happened, but it did, and we have to do something or it won't get any better. This is a global pandemic; we have to cooperate with each other to eradicate it.
Vaccines should not be mandated by the state or companies. I don't really disagree. I do not think authority figures should be able to tell any person that they have to put any substance into their body against their will or else face starvation or homelessness, which is a real threat if people get fired over their vaccine status. HOWEVER neither your nor my beliefs on this topic change the fact that the vaccine works and is VITAL to keeping our health system from collapsing, and you really should be choosing to get it on your own based on the available data regardless of what your boss is saying. Please don't refuse to get the vaccine just to "send a message" or take a stand against your boss or whoever, because I promise you they will fire you without a second thought, and the only person you are sending a message to is that little grandma we talked about earlier who needs intubated but can't find a free vent or ICU bed, so dies in the emergency room while unvaccinated people take up all the space in the hospital.
5. In Summary
There are risks associated with COVID-19 vaccination, as with any vaccine or medicine, but they are remarkably, remarkably low. The potential benefits of vaccination are significant, with a decreased risk of infection, hospitalization, and severe disease among those who are vaccinated. This benefit extends to the community as well, in that it means you are less likely to catch (and therefore spread) COVID-19, increase the rate of herd immunity in your area which protects everyone (especially the medically vulnerable), and reduces preventable, unnecessary COVID-19 admissions that are weighing down the health system and clogging up hospital beds. If you look at this purely from a risk-benefit standpoint there is no mathematical reason not to favor getting the vaccine, and I strongly urge everyone who can safely do so to schedule it.
I suppose my take-away statement is this: I am a physician. If you are willing to trust my advice when you show up to the hospital in respiratory distress, trust my advice now in trying to prevent you from getting to that point.
Please.
#covid-19#pandemic#covid vaccine#covid-19 vaccination#medblr#medical#population health#preventative medicine
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Submitted by @fudgemuffinanon
Ok I think I’m up to date….
1. HOLY SHIT WOMAN! You had Covid and just learned about it? How did you find out? Was it with a test? And you handled the asshat at the grocery store way better than I would have. I’m not patient, nor diplomatic, and I have major RBF syndrome… The temper goes with the face more ofter than I care to admit…
2. Your grandmother’s story was incredible. I know you don’t need another project but this could be a beautiful book. No fandom incorporated, just her story.
3. As @mollage said, the Universe is after you! But you may be one of the strongest woman I know, going through all your adventures with that attitude. Thank you Elizabeth for passing down your fiery spirit!
4. With everything that happened to you in the last few weeks, I can’t expect you to write anything. I’ll just wait and take what you give us. Fuck, I just have to deal with Baby Girl’s online school - Big Boy is responsible enough to deal with his class mostly alone - and I have to tell her to go back to the computer every 5 minutes and I’m going NUTS! And we have one more month to go…
Ontario has been in stay-at-home order since April 8th, and non-essential stores MAY reopen mid-June at 15% capacity and outdoor activities in small groups MAY resume IF we have 60% of population vaccinated with their first dose. We’re about 58% now according to Health Minister but they stopped giving Aztra as first dose, so all the pharmacies that could give it now can’t. There’s a lot less Pfizer and Moderna doses available so I don’t know how fast it will happen. But it means I will most likely get my second dose quicker than August. Yay me! Second phase won’t happen until we get 70% 1st dose vaccination. So we’re stuck for a while. We’re going out in the woods for walks once in a while so we don’t get too close to people but I want to go to a fabric store sooooo bad!! I’m done picking ticks off hubby everytime we get out. And I’m running out of crafts to learn on youtube.
Ok, enough ranting… gotta go finish knitting Baby girl’s bday gift. A 6" turtle. With clothes. And a shawl. And boots. Yeah… Love ya!
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Fudgey!!
Yup. All four of us had covid back in November of 2019, before it broke wide and before anyone really knew it was in the US. Husband was able to track it back to a coworker who’d returned from a family visit to China (he works with a large community of Asian Americans who travel back and forth a lot). The coworker came home sick, and shortly after that our household got the worst “flu” any of us have ever had (that was what we thought it was, a weirdly violent flu that hit each of us differently). I’ve never been sicker in my life, my husband thought I was going to die and he claims I told him to just let me go if it looked like I wasn’t going to make it. I’m pretty sure I meant it…it was that bad. I may have actually requested an assist to the other side at one point.
So anyway, a little while later it broke wide and when the symptom lists started coming out we started wondering if that wasn’t what we’d had. Husband finally a few weeks ago went and talked to the guy that had come back sick from overseas and the guy said “Oh yeah, I had the covid, did you get it too?”
By that time there had been approximately 150 known cases at husband’s workplace and six confirmed deaths from it. Grrrr.
At this point it was too late for us to get confirmed, but husband contacted a friend in Colorado who is a covid specialty ER nurse and described our symptoms and the timeframe of our illness to her. She said we absolutely had it - she’d had it too during that same timeframe, before it broke wide and before anyone knew what it was.
So now all my lingering weird-ass symptoms make sense. Big and Little are fine, they don’t seem to have any long-term problems, though I’m keeping an eye on them (especially Big). Husband is fine as well. Me? I took it in the seat of the pants, but like I was telling someone the other day, as soon as one of the longhaul clinics sets up here I’m gonna be there.
The putz in the grocery store was nothing unusual for here. What really gets me is the way people glare at us for continuing to wear masks - it’s almost scary. WTF is wrong with people.
Glad you liked my grandma’s story. Honestly I don’t know enough to write a book about her without having to speculate on a lot of in-between stuff because she was a very secretive person (probably for a good reason tbh) but what a tale it would be. She was a mess :D My mother has always been mad at me for taking after her - she never liked my grandmother much, there was some bad blood between them from decades back, and yeah that’s kind of a good story too lol
Ah, speaking of writing, I’m going to toss out a short chap of that silly self indulgent side-thing for The Department tonight (probably as soon as I send this reply off) and then I’m shooting for a chapter of the actual fic tomorrow at some point. Taking advantage of the husbandary absence (yes I know that’s not a word but it works)
I feel ya on the homeschooling - the boys finished their semester two weeks ago and the stress of that final week for Big (9th grade) was insane.
I wish we were under a stay-at-home order, but where I live hardly anyone obeyed it when we WERE. I love living here but I swear sometimes the people make me want to move off-planet just to find a higher intelligence demographic.
Anyway, I gotta see this turtle when you’re finished with it. You mentioned it so now you gotta show it. I’m going to bug you every day until you provide pictures because even though I can crochet a blanket like nobody’s business I cannot crochet a doll to save my own ass. Gonna have to rely on you for that ;P
@fudgemuffinanon
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Okay so idk how many of y'all vaccinated but in case you aren't yet, or you're nervous about getting the vaccine, here comes a vaccinated person to give you some tips!
Firstly, I recommend, if you can, taking a dose of anxiety medication before going to your appointment. Don't worry, it won't affect the vaccine.
When you get to your appointment, the first thing they'll usually do, of course, is take your temperature, and either ask you or have you fill out a quick questionnaire regarding your general health. For example, have you noticed any symptoms possibly related to covid in the past few days, does somebody you know have or has had it, what allergies might you have, have you had a reaction to a vaccine before, etc. No big deal, these are just formalities.
Alright, so, you've filled out your papers, and you're getting ready to get your shot. It's totally okay to feel anxious at this point! Here are a few tips that might help you out, courtesy of your local anxious person.
One is breathing. Yes, I know, you've probably heard it too many times before, but this situation is a great one for breathing. Breathe in deeply, and when they put the needle in your arm, breathe out slowly, and relax. The less tense your muscles are, the less the shot will pinch! You can also try shaking out your arm and letting it go limp before the shot. I always do this when I need to be poked for something.
And here is a tip I actually got from my boyfriend's mother, who used to be a nurse herself. When they put the needle in your arm, wrinkle up your nose! Scrunch your face! By doing this, you're drawing your body's and your mind's attention away from the tension in your arm, because they're focusing on the tension in your face. Or if you need it, bring a stress ball, something to squeeze, and squeeze it with your free hand. And if you have to go as far as holding a nurse's hand or asking a loved one to come with you, that's 100% alright, too. This is a big deal to get this shot and if you're nervous to do it alone, that's alright! We all need a little help sometimes.
I'll admit, the needle really stung, but it was also over before I knew it! Once they're done with poking you, they'll give you a band-aid, and send you to a chair, where they'll have you sit and chill for about 15-30 minutes. This is just so they can keep an eye on you for a bit to make sure you don't have any severe reactions to the vaccine. And if you don't feel well, just flag down a nurse, and tell them what's going on. They'll help you right away.
And after those 15-30 minutes, you're done! All vaccinated! (Well, I only had to do this once, I got the Johnson&Johnson vaccine, but my mother and father got the Pfizer and these procedures were the same even when they were given their second dose.) But when you get home, I promise you that for the next 2 days at least, and 4 days at most, that you're gonna feel SHITTY. Do not panic. This is normal, and it means that the vaccine is working! You should feel all better in at least a week. But if it's been more than that and you still feel crappy, just call your doctor, and let them know you were recently vaccinated. They'll take care of you from there.
Okay, this was long, but for any of you that are worried or hesitant to get poked, I hope this helps! Please please please go get your shots, and don't be afraid! You can do this!
— 🌹
Thank you ever so much for this!!!! This is so important and I really hope everyone who is offered the vaccine gets it. I can’t wait to get mine so I can get back out into the world properly without worrying so much about Corona.
I’m not sure which country you’re in, but your account sounds almost exactly the same as how it’s being done here in the UK.
Also about the effects it’ll have over the next few days, alot of people who I know that have had it have said the same as you regarding the pain in the arm and the feeling crap. But lots of people have also felt fine afterwards with hardly any effects. So just note that everyone is different and your body may react differently to it compared to others.
Thank you again 🌹 anon! 💜💜💜💜
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My Experience With the COVID-19 Vaccine
I will start this by saying that -obviously- this is my account of how things went, and that it is not a guarantee that other people will experience the same thing. I'm just sharing my experience.
I got Pfizer's vaccine, which was nerve-wracking at first because I had experienced anaphylaxis before. (Pfizer has been shown to cause anaphylaxis in some people with strong allergy reactions). First shot, I was considered 'high-risk' for that reason. What that means is that rather than monitoring you for the standard 15 mins, they monitor you for 30 mins. Because I had no reaction to the first shot, I was not considered 'high-risk' for the second one.
I went to a mass vaccination site to get my vaccines. If you are doing this, GO IN THE MORNING if possible. There were no lines to wait in and the actual checking in and receiving the vaccine took, at most, 10 minutes. My brother-in-law, who got his after work, had to wait in line for 45 minutes.
1st dose - I received my first dose on March 24th. Literally no side-effects. My arm didn't feel sore and I could touch the injection site with no pain.
2nd dose - I received my second dose on April 14th. For the first 11 hours after the vaccine, my arm was mildly sore. I had plenty of energy, and I felt good. By hour 12, I was shivering constantly from chills. My arm was now moderately sore, and I couldn't raise it above my head. I did not record my temperature because I didn't think of it at the time. I had vomited once. Despite being exhausted, I didn't sleep for more than 2-3 hours that night. My heart was racing.
By the next morning, I was only marginally better. I had a headache, no appetite, and I still had a fever. I was exhausted. By the evening, I had a fever of 102.2. I was able to sleep, though, which was nice. My fever broke last night.
This morning (4/16), I am feeling marginally better. I am still tired, and have a headache. My temperature is 99.6, which is high for me but not too bad. Still no appetite.
Just a note for period-havers: I have heard of the vaccines affecting one's period. I don't know how it's affected others, but it has affected mine. I was unlucky enough to have my period during the second dose. I was on day two of a four to five day cycle. By the night of 4/14, my period had slowed down substantially, and by 4/15, it had stopped completely. Today (4/16), I've started spotting but it's nothing substantial. (Day 2 and 3 are my heaviest days)
Would I do it again? Yes, a thousand times over! These three days of misery are nothing compared to getting COVID, and the guilt that would come from me spreading it to my family. This misery is also nothing compared to the lives we've already lost. And, selfishly, I just want to be out and around people again. I do not regret this whatsoever.
TLDR: I have received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine. The first vaccine was nothing special, the second dose was abject misery. Symptoms included: Fever, pain, chills, vomiting, trouble sleeping, loss of appetite, headaches, and an interruption of my period. However, I do not regret it.
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So you’re getting the covid vaccine
You’ve finally gotten a hold of the health department, nailed down that elusive appointment, and the big day’s almost here. You may have a lot of questions: what will the site look like? Who else will be there? How will I feel afterwards? You may be excited; you may be nervous (and your conspiracy theorist family member hasn’t been helping).
I’m going to try to lay some of your concerns to rest. I’ve been working at my state’s vax sites for about a month at the time of writing; my information won’t apply to all states and it’s very unlikely to apply outside the US, but it may help you get your bearings and make the whole thing less alien and intimidating.
The site is likely to be run by state or county health departments, or by a local hospital, but it may not be located at a healthcare facility, depending on the number of patients they usually get. High-volume sites tend to be set up wherever they can find room for a thousand people and their cars; some of ours are hosted by sports stadiums and shopping malls. Pop-up sites are also a possibility, and will probably become more common as younger people are brought into phase. These are sent out to places like industrial sites and college campuses to get shots to people where they are.
Most of the sites I’ve worked at are drive-thru, some take foot traffic. Almost all require you to make an appointment. (I can’t help you much with the appointment side of things; that differs significantly from state to state. Best to google it or call your local health department.) If you have an appointment but aren’t familiar with the site, drive by it ahead of time. See for yourself what you’re heading into. If they’re not too busy, stop and talk to some of the site personnel. Ask them if there’s a particular way they want you to enter from; many sites have a single flow of traffic with one entry and one exit, while others (like the one I’m at right now) are set back in a rabbit warren of back streets, half of which will be blocked off on a busy day. Scout ahead; we appreciate you being prepared. Ask questions; I guarantee I’ve answered much dumber ones.
A note on drive-thru sites: please be on your game when you’re driving. You’ll most likely be driving through tight spaces with pedestrians and other cars very close by. Know where the corners of your car are, and be able to tell your gas pedal from your brake. It sounds petty to harp on these things, but I spend my days dealing with people who straight up can’t. Keep your head on a swivel, as we say. Please don’t be that person who plows into a concrete barrier or, God forbid, one of my buddies. If you’re not comfortable driving in cramped, low speed conditions, please try to find someone to drive you. At the very least, have someone drop you off; even drive-thru sites will accommodate a walk-up if you have an appointment.
Now that you’re at the vax site, who can you expect to meet? A lot of other patients, obviously; you can’t receive the vaccine if you’re currently sick, so you shouldn’t be at an elevated risk of catching anything from the people around you. However, people will occasionally get in line thinking it’s a testing site (which they generally won’t seek out unless they’re sick) and you always have the risk of silent carriers, so it’s best to maintain a distance and mask up as applicable.
Most sites are going to be staffed by employees of the hospital or health department running the event; depending on where you are, the National Guard may also have been deployed to assist. At my site, we have a mix of National Guard, State Guard, and Health Department staff working all positions: three of our medics are military, while on a busy day the Health Department's dentist will come out an help me direct traffic. Don’t be intimidated by the uniforms; we don’t have any authority beyond parking you in the right spot, and I don’t think any state arms their covid-response teams. And don’t thank us for our service; it’s awkward, annoying, and we’d much rather you just wear your mask and not hit us with your car.
There may be cops onsite, depending on how bad traffic congestion is and/or how many belligerent boomers they’re expecting. (Seriously, that’s who causes the majority of our problems. If somebody’s going to start trouble, nine times out of ten it’ll be an old white person with a shit ton of money.) I wish I could say that none of them are the kind to go looking for trouble, but unfortunately I’ve known too many cops - it only takes one to ruin it for everybody. For the most part, though, this is going to be an easy-money type of assignment for them, and if they’re not in their patrol cars they’re probably gossiping with the National Guard.
As you get up to the actual clinic, someone is going to approach you to take down your medical information. If you’re on foot, they may hand you the forms to fill out; if it’s a drive thru site, they’ll probably ask you the questions and write down your answers. This won’t take long; most sites streamlined their process while they were doing testing last year. To avoid clerical errors, a good practice is to hold up your ID and have them copy your name and address, especially if English isn’t your first language or you speak a noticeably different dialect of English.
Ok, so you’ve located the site, braved the traffic, made it past Corporal Snuffy with his clipboard, sat in The Line That Time Forgot, and now you’ve finally reached it: the Gleaming Needle of Destiny. What will the shot itself be like? Practically speaking, not all that different from the average flu shot. A quick poke in the arm, a bandaid that you don’t really need, and then you go wait 15-30 minutes to make sure you aren’t allergic to it. My buddy and I just finished our course of the Pfizer; neither the first nor the second shot gave me more than a sore arm, but my buddy got a mild fever after the second one and didn’t feel well for about 24 hours afterward. Both are normal reactions. It’s best to plan your second dose so you have some time to recover in case you do have an immune response; better to have it and not need it. However, if you break out in hives, get an itching throat, or show any other symptoms of an allergic reaction, this is not normal and you should flag one of us down immediately. Walk up to somebody, beep the horn - whatever you have to do to get our attention. You are surrounded not only by medical personnel, but by bored soldiers with a shit ton of first aid training and visions of lifesaving and glory. We will be more than willing to help you.
Once you’ve received the shot but before you’re sent off to Observation (Interminable Wait #2), you’ll receive a card with your vaccination info on it. If you do not receive one, go back and pester them until they give you one. This is your proof of vaccination; do not throw it out. If you want to get on a plane you may be required to present it as proof of not being a plague rat, and at any rate you’ll want it for your medical record. Some places may put a date on there for your second shot and use it as proof of appointment; others may require you to go make the second appointment on your own. Double check which the case is. You most likely will be getting the two-shot vaccine, either Pfizer or Moderna. I don’t know of any sites that are doing Johnson+Johnson; they seem to be encountering a bunch of PR problems already, so I don’t know how widespread that one will get. Just make sure if you are scheduling your own second appointment that you get the same vaccine type as you got for the first one; getting one Pfizer and one Moderna will result in neither being effective. The scheduling website should be set up so you can’t do that, but just double check; trust but verify. And by the way, the second shot isn't formulated any different frim the first one. It's the same exact thing in the syringe, your body just has to see it twice to be able to use it.
And that’s it! After about fifteen or thirty minutes we will have established that you aren’t going to swell up like a character from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and we’ll turn you loose upon the world. Go home, take a nap and/or some motrin for that sore arm, and then feel free to add your experiences to this post!
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So, today was a pretty big day.
I had my ultrasound this morning to check on little one’s growth, and he is measuring just a little under 6 pounds by their estimate. Considering the fact that I’ve still got a little over five weeks to go, I’m pretty hopeful he’s gonna come a little early 😂 of course it’s all estimates so he could be smaller than that. Only time will tell.
He is head down though, which is good news, because I’ve been wondering if he might be transverse based on where I’ve been feeling movements, but I guess with his legs curled up, where I’m feeling kicks makes sense in terms of where his feet would be, and the movements I’m feeling in my lower abdomen must be just his back pressing out a bit because of how he’s laying. The tech said he was sideways, with his back to her as she was doing the scan. His head is apparently right against my cervix too, but that’s still measuring pretty long - 4ish centimeters.
So that was my morning, and then I got to rest my feet for about an hour after getting home before heading back out to get my second Pfizer dose of the covid vaccine. I’m very excited to have been able to get it before baby came, so that I can now pass on even more antibodies to him, and also I didn’t really feel keen on dealing with potential side effects while handling a newborn. Mind you, I didn’t have much side effects from the first shot or the TDAP booster, so I’m crossing my fingers for this shot too. Time will tell.
Either way, exciting day, and we have a nice weekend coming up - doing a little staycation tomorrow night at a nearby hotel (with a pool 🥰) and Sunday we’ll be going over to my parents’ for a small kinda baby shower. And once that’s done I can finally get the go ahead to start buying a few more of the things left on our registry 😂
Either way, it’ll be a nice long weekend to look back on. And by the end of it, I’ll be 35 weeks with a short countdown ahead. I can’t wait to meet the little guy 💙
- Marie
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My Vaccination Saga
Short version? I got my first Pfizer shot. Second is already scheduled. If you X out the chronic stuff, the actual side effects were mild, it's just adding extra to a pile of Jesus Fuck I've been dealing with a weekish. Second dose will likely suck a lot more, judging from Squirrel and lots of vaccine related news coverage, but it is nothing next to getting covid, and I would gladly take Vaccine side effects rather than the AS and CF stuff I deal with every day. Trust me.
So get the damned shot, whatever shot when they offer it. (The ones that aren't working so well as not in the US. Seriously, just get the shot when your number comes up. I'd have taken whatever they gave me). And don't be That Lady. Be nice to your provider because they are working their asses off to try to save your life.
I've been having a severe pain incident for a little over a week, along with a bunch of the other things that periodically got wrong with my body, plus the thing I really am going to need to see a doctor about but we didn't have tet results until late Friday. This happens. To give you an idea, on Friday and Sunday I was playing a particularly painful game of leg roulette every time I stood up. (That's the thing where you get so much pain that the legs don't really work properly and occasionally close. It makes bathroom trips extra exciting, as you can imagine.
At my level of chronic pain, anything I do hurts. Standing, sitting, lying down, moving, not moving. There's a baseline level of pain, the bits that really hurt, and a constant juggling act awake or asleep to keep shifting the really bad pain around so one spot doesn't get too bad for too long, because level ten pain mean it can literally take hours to move just enough to get an emergency pain pill that is less than afoot away from the closest arm.
I am not being dramatic. I am someone who must think through even small tasks in advance because literally everything is measured in where the pain is going to spike and how much. So the past week has been a nightmare even by my standards.
I went to the vaccine appointment, knowing how much painful standing there usually is for screening, check in etc.. I went in knowing "muscle aches" is a common side effect. I went in even though my legs tried to give out in the parking lot.
I am explaining this so you know where my baseline was before the shot.
The process itself was shockingly smooth. There wasn't even a screening line because they had four people on it. Seriously, I was impressed as hell with the level of streamlined and staffing. One door screener. One greeter downstairs to send medical patients through to the other waiting room and hand vaccine folk their paperwork and clipboard. Two dedicated check in people who also gave you the second shot appointment right then. Three actual vaccine stations with two staff each, plus a lady watching people for bad reactions in a socially distance waiting area. They stuck an erasable thingie to the pole on the back of each chair with the time you are allowed to leave.
Staff had all been second shot before end of January, so having so many wasn't an issue. Everyone properly masked, off course, bu you can't distance vaccination itself. I felt pretty safe, except with the elevator.
There are a lot of stairs you see. Stairs are dangerous for me at the best of time and on leg roulette day with that many hard, sharp edged stairs? That's begging to break something or tear something or get a head injury. Going down is far more dangerous than up.
They have helpfully put little Social distance X marks on the carpet for people waiting to individually use the elevator. (Yes, people together can go in together). So doors open. No one is inside. Ideal! I pop in. Doors start closing and a lady starts cursing at me because I didn't hold the door. She's insisting two per and cursing at me for being an asshole and I get a glimpse of her loosely masked face mask as it shuts. It's barely over her nose and huge gaps at either side of the nose and at the sides. I get it, standing up hurts, but even if I'd noticed her in time, I wouldn't have wanted to share the elevator with a badly masked stranger.
She's a bit rude to paperwork lady. She's at the other check in while I'm doing mine and she throws a massive tantrum because they do not have all three vaccines on hand so she doesn't get to personally pick the one she wants. We're literally a month behind on vaccinations in this county because they have sent so few here, and I knew we were getting either Pfiser or Moderna because they tell you you will need a second shot when you make the first appointment. Still, I would have happily taken whatever they gave me and was just thrilled we were getting Pfiser. But she didn't want Pfiser and it was like if she thought she threw a tantrum they would teleport the one she wanted here at her command. If she Karened hard enough and yelled high risk enough the nuse would pull a vial out of her ass just for her. Yes she was old and frail and high risk and in pain. Literally everyone there to get vaccinated to day had a super serious heart and/or lung condition, and I'd wager nearly all of us were in pain. It did not stop me being polite and grateful and I am and have bin in the kind of pain they'd give you Demerol for in a hospital off and on all week. It literal takes me three to four hours to make it out of bed right now. (Yes, I'm still doing the physio routine, with long gaps between reps and the expansion reps knocked off which I am allowed to do. To make that happen I have to do a lot of slow, super gentle passive stretching so the stabbed in the back sensation calms down enough for me to move my arms).
I spent 3-5 minutes sitting on the window ledge waiting to get jabbed, by which time the greeter and the check in people had just managed to convince her to stop yelling and sit down. So no one else could get checked in and she basically tied up three people with her assholery. Then one of them ad to go get a doctor to somehow make space in the schedule to talk her down. so she wasted a check in person's time. Poverty clinic schedules tight and works long days because they are always behind and they see everyone with an appointment even if it takes an extra hour or two. It's not that doctor's time she's wasting, but at least two nurses and everyone who had an appointment after 10:15 or so with that Doctor who just got their appointment shoved back.
A get my jab. I read my info sheet the rest of the way through and start on a short story. My time's up and I am gimping to the elevator to leave, when I see one of them escorting her from the tantrum chair to the wait to get vaccinated area. So she did get her jab, and I'm glad she did, but Jesus fuck was she an asshole to everyone she interacted with that I saw at the clinic that day, and they were so sweet and polite and patient with her.
I fucking love Poverty Clinic. I've literally never had a better GP than the one I have right now there and the people are so wonderful and they've all worked like titans to keep people safe and alive this year and absolutely do NOT deserve this shit. I bet it happens a lot.
I had cleverly saved some cash for take out because I knew I should eat because god knows what shape I'd be in later. There are literally two edible to me fast foods between downtown and home, not counting Starbucks. Only one has a drive thru and I don't go inside anywhere I don't have to because pandemic. Assuming I don't get infected it was very much the correct choice. I ate.
Housing tax had just arrived, and I forced my self to write the check and mask back up to hobble it out to the mail slot and back. I was exhausted when I left the house, but I know vaccine tired when I feel it and it descended on me like wet sand when I was almost to my door. This mini-trip also was the correct decision.
I still needed to do the usual checklist of things and bathe. Daily hydrotherapy is as essential as food at this stage in my deterioration. I would have been fucked without the grab bars, but you could have said the same about Sunday.
I slept as long as I could. The pain on waking was stunning. Thing is though? I've been in pain since 1986. Literally everyone I know know not counting two (2) family members, or who have not seen me really drunk have ever seen me when I wasn't in pain. I know pain intimately. I definitely know chronic pain vs flu or vaccine muscle ache. Yes there is muscle ache in there and it does make it worse by like a pain level? But if you removed everything chronic pain, this is nothing. Minor shit I would happily trade for my baseline on a good day daily pain. Sure the upper arm and especially the injection site hurt like a motherfucker if I touch it with my fingers and the left shoulder joint is up a pain level, but it's not even close to the right side shoulder joint on a good day. And yeah, I'm tired, but it's not that much worse than, say Friday. I did clock two tiny dizzy spells and I think my lungs are a little less clear than before the shot, but it's within what I consider my lung patient realm of normal and the only time I had trouble was when I had to scoop the litter box and that always fucks me up.
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Delivery delay slows down vaccination, but it will pick up again and remains on target in N.S.
The pace of vaccinations in the Maritimes has slowed slightly due to a delay in vaccine supply delivery, but officials say the provinces say are on track to reach their targets.
Halifax MP Andy Fillmore got his first shot Wednesday – taking the Oxford-AstraSeneca vaccine as politicians do their part to try to address concerns about that company's COVID-19 vaccine.
"Should you wait, should you not?" Fillmore said. "The advice from Health Canada has remained consistent; the best vaccine is the first vaccine you can get."
Nova Scotia MLA Claudia Chender got AstraZeneca, too, reiterating the message of officials this week.
"I certainly don't want to be bringing home the virus, so you know, for my personal risk assessment, I felt like the first shot offered was the best shot," Chender said.
But news that a New Brunswicker who received AstraZeneca died of the rare blood clot associated with it makes some nervous.
"I want to be vaccinated as soon as possible, but I want to do whatever one is safest," said Joell Majeau.
Hearing Nova Scotia's chief medical officer of health describe Pfizer and Moderna as the "better" vaccines helped Majeau make up her mind, but they're not yet available to her age group.
"I'm talking to my friends in the States and they're all like, 'I've got my second shot, my age group, we're all good,' and it's like, I haven't even gotten my first shot yet," said Majeau.
Tracey Barbrick is the associate deputy minister of health in Nova Scotia and the head of Nova Scotia's vaccine rollout.
She says to expect age categories to open up weekly from here on out.
"We went to 50 plus this past Monday, and we expect to go to forty-five plus very soon," Barbrick said.
Last month, Nova Scotia was the fastest vaccinating province. That slowed over the past two weeks because of lower supply, but more Moderna is on the way.
"We'll have a week with a bit of an increase, but the total Moderna that we're expecting isn't getting any bigger," Barbrick said. "We're just getting a shipment a little earlier than we expected."
She says the province is on target to get the first dose into all eligible Nova Scotians by the end of June.
As for the second that depends on supply.
"We'll figure out whether we can bring everybody up a little bit so that their second dose is sooner," Barbrick said.
As for the AstraZeneca vaccine, Nova Scotia health officials say there are still about 200 appointments available for that right now, but they don't anticipate having any leftover doses.
from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/2Rv998k
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FEATURE: How To Your Eternity Teaches Us the Importance of Life's Little Moments
2020 was a year of almost universal hardship, and I myself experienced much of the grief firsthand. Around the very beginning of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, a dear relative passed away from the disease in a loss that shook my entire family to its core. The initial cabin fever and isolation of the quarantine’s early days ground my writing inspiration and creative drive into dust. And even as we approach a turning point in the pandemic where we can all get vaccinated (I received my second Pfizer dose late April), another of my loved ones has been undergoing treatment for a completely different illness. Traversing a year of strife and anxiety hasn’t been easy, but it has taught me some very important lessons. Namely, I’ve learned to appreciate all the little things I have in my life and how important each of them is and continues to be. But I couldn’t really put words to that experience. At least, not until I watched the first episode of To Your Eternity.
If you haven’t checked it out yet (and you really should), To Your Eternity was one of the spring 2021 season’s most anticipated anime. In this emotional sci-fi epic, an omnipotent being sends an orb down to Earth. Having no form or identity, its only goal is to observe the world around it. Over the course of its seemingly infinite lifespan, it begins to take on different forms and accrue information in order to better understand its surroundings. Eventually, the Orb comes across humanity and civilization and begins to learn even more.
There is no shortage of heart-wrenching narrative depth in To Your Eternity. The first episode is already wrought with tragedy and drama that doesn’t pull any punches. The scene that truly made an impact on me was the very first when the Orb took on its first living form. After spending some immeasurable time as a rock and moss thereafter, the Orb comes into contact with a dying wolf and undergoes its transformation.
I felt so much gravity behind these deceptively simple actions, this onslaught of firsts for the Orb. Its first sense of consciousness, its first clumsy steps, its first sensation of pain. Watching the Orb have all these new experiences felt so raw and scary and absolutely spellbinding all at once. In less than two minutes, To Your Eternity presented an astounding amount of emotion as new life cropped up before us as the Orb achieved awareness of itself and the world. As a living being, the Orb observed life and pain and the sensation of its surroundings, even if they held no meaning for it at first.
These little actions — walking, feeling, knowing — held so much grandeur and emotion that I was overwhelmed to tears. I could feel the weight of each step it took learning how to walk, the stinging of its first wound, and its senses being assaulted by harsh snowfall and unforgiving winds. As it began its journey of observation, the world was already unkind to it. But it still went on to make its first friend and learn kindness and loss. It walked and learned and felt, and something inside me just resonated. By the time the episode ended, I had found something more than just a pitch-perfect pilot. Those moments of tiny growth and gradual change served to exemplify a lot of what I’d been going through up to that point.
I fired up To Your Eternity at an emotionally vulnerable moment in my life. I was waiting to hear back on a loved one’s test results on a medical condition that cropped up as they grapple with an ongoing illness. Tensions were high, and as I waited to hear how they were, I took a lot of time within the day to relish every moment I shared with them. Be it birthdays or dinners or even just watching TV, I knew exactly how precious my time with them was and will continue to be as they fight the good fight. It was that mindset that made the pilot for To Your Eternity so important to me.
Each new piece of information the Orb (eventually named Fushi) gleans is a meaningful experience in their existence. Not all of them are as important as, say, dismantling the religion of a backwater tribe that sacrifices young girls to a giant bear — there’s also eating fruit, basking in warmth, knowing pain, and learning how to say “thank you.” No moment is wasted for Fushi because they always fulfill their purpose of learning something new. I often ponder on what it must have been like for Fushi to start from absolute zero, coming into existence with less awareness than a newborn and having to learn the fundamentals of life and survival almost immediately. That only magnifies the lessons I’ve learned throughout this pandemic.
Because in the end, the little things mean so much when you add them all up. I had to learn that the hard way, but it’s something I won’t ever forget. I do what I can now for myself and the people I love, and even on the worst days, I try to remember that everything I do has a little meaning to it. To Your Eternity helped me solidify this little lesson. And as Fushi learns and grows and presses forward through the highs and lows of its existence, maybe we can too.
Are you keeping up with To Your Eternity? Which part has struck the biggest chord with you so far? Comment below and tell us your thoughts!
Carlos (aka Callie) is a freelance features writer for Crunchyroll. Their favorite genres range from magical girls to over-the-top robot action, yet their favorite characters are always the obscure ones. Check out some of their pop culture pieces on Popdust and Looper as well as their satirical work on The Hard Times.
Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!
By: Carlos Cadorniga
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COVID 2nd shot side effects liveblog: Part 4
Well, at this point I’m well over 48 hours since my dose, and I’m feeling fine. I must have gotten really lucky; I’ve heard so many people say that the second dose was awful and they had all these nasty side effects, but I pretty much walked away feeling totally normal.
I wonder how much of that I can blame on pregnancy symptoms and the potential side effects overlapping lol.
The only side effect I experienced that I can completely and confidently blame on my shot was the pain at the injection site. It wasn’t severe at all, and might have actually been even milder than the first shot, though I couldn’t say for sure. I avoided sleeping on that side, and took tylenol a couple times a day, and I was fine.
I may have experienced some fatigue after the injection, but as stated in my previous posts, there were other factors that could also be blamed for that one. Might have been that they all added up together. I was pretty wiped yesterday afternoon.
Finally, there’s a teeny chance I had a fever overnight? Possibly? I know I felt kind of hot and sweaty at one point, but it was so minor I didn’t even bother doing anything about it aside from kick the sheets off. I call that pretty weak evidence though.
Overall, I gotta say my experience with my second dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was really anticlimactic. I don’t think I would have even registered any of these things other than the arm pain if I wasn’t specifically on the lookout for side effects. I know there’s a high percentage of people who experience at least SOME discomfort, but it’s not 100%, so maybe I’m just one of the lucky few.
And now, I just have to wait 2 weeks and then I can say I’m fully vaccinated! That honestly makes me really excited!
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I’m also in Canada and I’m pissed I have to wait 4 months for my second Pfizer dose! I got my first shot near the beginning of the year and I still have to wait another month for my 2nd dose - and I work in a hospital! What really angers me is when I got the first dose, they gave me an appointment a month away and then right when they came up with this new 4 month wait, they cancelled my original 2nd appointment and moved it another 3 months! Ridiculous!
Yeah, the lack of reliable arrivals for vaccines, particularly from Pfizer has been a major issue. And don’t even get me started on Moderna, who are effectively just tossing a few bottles across the border like a drunk uncle once a month. When they gave so many of us those first shots early on, they thought (based on promises from Pfizer) that many more shots were on the way but then there were delays, more delays and a lot of excuses and schedules had to be reworked. It’s just frustrating because this huge delay between the two shots is not at all recommended by the manufacturer (ironic, since they are the cause of the problem) or medical professionals as the vaccine was never really tested for those conditions. And then we got Astrozeneca because the US didn’t want it and well, now look at what’s happening....
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Finally got my first Covid dose today (Pfizer). Feeling good thus far, but I don't really expect anything until the second dose anyway.
"But, Forest, aren't you a healthcare worker? " I hear you ask, "Shouldn't you have gotten one a long time back?"
Honestly, yes.
I will admit that, at first, I was genuinely hesitant to get it. Vaccine development normally takes years. This includes extensive research and a multitude of clinical trials that I felt the covid vaccines- with their rapid, less than a year release -just didn't have.
So, since I'm still relatively young and have no outstanding health issues like diabetes or asthma, I decided to hold off for a bit. Maybe a bit risky in a pharmacy setting, but my coworker and I have been strict about keeping things clean and sanitized since this all started, so probably less risk than in other places.
Once I felt comfortable enough in the vaccine to consider getting it, it was a matter of finding a good day. I've been working a lot of overtime, and my days off are usually split, so I wanted to get my shot on a day where I knew I wouldn't have to worry about work the next day, and where I thought I'd be okay to miss a day or two when it came time for the 2nd dose (in case I get side effects). As my schedule is made on a weekly basis and varies depending on the amount of help we have, it was kind of hard to try and plan around- especially in the early days when appointments filled up fast.
So I waited a bit more, and it eventually got to the point where I decided to just wait until everyone could get it so that I could book my sister's appointment too (I made sure that my mom got hers once I felt it was okay).
Fast forward a month or so (and a few scoldings from my brother stemming from frustration/disbelief that I hadn't gotten one yet), and here we are. Dose one is done. Then once I get dose two (and maybe three), I can relax a teeny bit.
Plus, I won't have to worry about it when everything opens up again and my coworkers who are on leave come back. Once they're in those doors, I'm taking all of my vacation time at once and stepping out. I am looking forward to those three weeks of relaxation. Maybe I'll even travel a bit. Who knows.
[EDIT]
It’s been a few hours and my arm is now a bit sore. It’s nothing unbearable, but it does twinge more if any pressure is applied.
So, with my luck being what it is, of course my sister would accidentally hit the most tender spot by accident. I couldn’t stop laughing when it happened, even as she was apologizing like crazy.
#Covid talk#I need a vacation#I've had that song from Pikachu's vacation playing in my head more and more lately#You know the one#The moment I'm free I'm posting that song here#In all seriousness though I am glad I finally got the vaccine#The soreness is pretty ignorable#My poor sister felt so guilty#I just found it funny
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Contra-Vax
Vaccines to the rescue? Only if people roll up their sleeves. Photo courtesy of Valleywise Health
Science moved at unprecedented speed to develop vaccines against the new coronavirus. It was too fast for some latinos -- especially those egged on by myth and misinformation
On the ranch where Gabriela Navarrete was raised in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, she learned early on that the land could provide what she needed to cure her ills. Mesquite bark, olive oil, corn vinegar and baking soda were useful for treating everything from joint pains to throat infections. In case of indigestion, the medicine was a good old stomach rub.
Navarrete, 69, passed on to her three daughters and one son the lesson that "everything natural is what is good for the body."
So when the COVID-19 pandemic began, she quickly stocked up on Vitamin C, infusions of ginger, chamomile and peppermint, and linden tea for sleeping.
And while this arsenal failed to defend her against the coronavirus last year, she remains resolute: Her principle of "consuming everything natural," she said, is more powerful than the idea of getting vaccinated.
That's why she’s decided that the new COVID vaccines are not for her.
"Getting the vaccine is going to be very bad for me because I think they are made from the virus itself," Navarrete said, talking from her home in Anthony, New Mexico, a small town on the border with Texas. "The only time I got the flu shot, I got a lot worse and I don't want to do that to my body anymore."
Graciela Navarrete and her grandson, Diego.
The coronavirus reached Navarrete’s family through her 17-year-old daughter, an athlete who resumed volleyball practice once the school gym was opened after the lockdown. Everyone avoided hospitalization. They were treated by the family doctor with antibiotics, ibuprofen and albuterol in inhalers.
"The virus gave me very bad headaches and I still struggle when walking, so I accepted the medicines. But I am definitely not getting vaccinated."
Like others her age, Navarette is at a higher risk of infection. Yet that’s not enough for her or her children to discount messages they’ve gotten via WhatsApp, complete with videos, that claim, for example, that vaccines are made with tissues of aborted fetuses.
Doubts and fears
Nationwide, people across demographic lines have lingering doubts about the new COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new survey by the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
Half of the survey respondents said they plan to get vaccinated as soon as they’re allowed to. But 19% say they want to first see how others react to the inoculations, while 24% say they will avoid the vaccine if they can.
Among Latinos, according to recent data from the COVID-19 vaccine monitor launched by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) to track attitudes and experiences with the vaccines, 18% of adults said they will definitely not get the vaccine. Another 11% said they will only do so if it’s required by employers. And, among those who have decided that they will get vaccinated, 43% said they want to wait and see how the innoculations affect other Latinos.
According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Latinos are nearly twice as likely to be infected by COVID-19 as non-Latino whites. The same population is more than four times as likely to be hospitalized and almost three times as likely to die of the virus. This is due, partly, to the large number of Latinos working in essential jobs that expose them to co-workers and the public. Other factors, like access to health care, also play a role.
Despite the higher risk, some Latinos remain uncertain about the safety of the new coronavirus vaccines.
An example: Navarrete in Texas, said she believes the myth that vaccines carry bits of an actual virus.
"There are other vaccines that have virus particles, including live virus particles," said Gerardo Capo, chief of hematology at Trinitas Comprehensive Cancer Center in New Jersey. "This vaccine is more modern. It has internal proteins of the virus that are not considered to cause an infection. It is impossible."
Vaccine hesitancy among Latinos in the U.S. is not necessarily an ideological issue or a belief in the anti-vaccine movement. "It has more to do with not having enough information or having inadequate information," said Nelly Salgado de Snyder, a researcher with the University of Texas at Austin.
Doubts exist even among Latino health care professionals.
Ada Linares, a nurse in the New York area, told palabra. that it’s not the suspicious messaging seen on social media or via WhatsApp texts, but her own unfamiliarity with this vaccine -- how it was developed and potential side effects perhaps overlooked in testing and trials that moved at unprecedented speed.
“I have always been pro-vaccine, and I think this is why we are here today,” she said. “But at the same time, I don’t know much about (the vaccines).”
Nurse Ada Linares hesitated for some time but she eventually rolled up her scrubs and took her doses. Photo: Jorge Melchor
Avoiding the needle
In Texas, officials started by vaccinating health care workers, residents of nursing homes and some people older than 65 years.
Throughout the state, according to the KFF monitor, only 15% of vaccines have reached Hispanics, even though Latinos account for almost 40% of the population, 44% of coronavirus cases and almost half of COVID-19 deaths.
"We need to focus on equity as part of the COVID-19 vaccination effort," said Samantha Artiga, director of KFF's racial equity and health policy program. "It is important to monitor data by race and ethnicity to understand the experiences of the communities ... , who is receiving the vaccines, and who has been the most affected by the pandemic."
But it’s more than just reluctance. Studies into low flu vaccination rates among low-income Latino seniors show that being uninsured -- and even the lack of transportation to get to vaccination centers -- are huge barriers.
Experts suggest that no-cost COVID-19 vaccines, available to everyone regardless of health insurance or immigration status, could help close the gap, “if the information is available in linguistically appropriate materials and the concerns of people are clearly addressed. Immigrant families should be assured that their medical data is private and will not be used by federal agencies,” Artiga said.
Conspiracy theories
In addition to debunked conspiracy theories that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines can alter DNA, or contain microchips implanted by Bill Gates to monitor people with 5G technology, other rumors specific to the Latino community have spread through social media.
“The viral disinformation includes anonymous voice messages on WhatsApp that say that since Trump does not like Mexicans and built the wall, he wants to vaccinate us so we cannot have more children, or that the vaccine is a poison for those of us who are here undocumented, that it is a way to get rid of us,” Salgado de Snyder said.
Photo illustration by FrankHH/Shutterstock
She suggested one possible reason such disinformation is embraced: “People believe it because they don't have the level of education or the institutional support to confirm this information that they hear from other Latinos. Many of them do not speak English and most of the scientific information is not available in Spanish,” she said.
Salgado de Snyder is the co-author of the study, “Exploring Why Adult Mexican Males Do Not Get Vaccinated: Implications for COVID-19 Preventive Actions,” conducted by the Migrant Clinicians Network and published last September.
Data was collected in 2019 at the Ventanilla de Salud at the Mexican Consulate in Austin. Before the pandemic, the clinic offered free vaccines against maladies like influenza, tetanus, hepatitis A and B, and human papilloma, in association with Austin Public Health.
Some 400 patients gave researchers a variety of reasons for not getting vaccinated, including lack of time or money, fear of injections and of potential side effects, insufficient information or motivation, and the perception that they are healthy and don’t need inoculation.
"While women are more familiar with the health system because in Mexico there is a universal voluntary and free vaccination program, men have the mistaken belief that vaccines are the cure for a problem, they do not see (a vaccination) as a preventive tool," Salgado de Snyder said.
“As breadwinners, they do not want to miss a day of work to go to get vaccinated,” she added. “That is why our recommendations in times of COVID are that through some type of mobile clinic, employers offer vaccines in workplaces such as construction companies or meatpacking plants,” she said.
Moving too fast
María del Rosario Cadena remembers that during her childhood in Tampico, in Mexico’s Tamaulipas state, she received vaccines against hepatitis and polio without any side effects. But she is "very suspicious" about the COVID-19 vaccines that seem to have been developed and approved so quickly.
"I've seen on TV that it affects various parts of the body and people get very sick after receiving it," del Rosario Cadena said.
Maria del Rosario Cadena
Apart from her doubts about the vaccine, del Rosario Cadena insists she follows all recommendations to guard against COVID-19: She wears a mask, she practices social distancing, and she’s always washing her hands. And, since she doesn’t go out "at all," the 71-year-old said she believes that “isolation is my vaccine. I feel I don't need it."
Her daughter, Rocio Valderrabano, 55, is diabetic, so she will soon have access to a COVID-19 vaccine. But she has doubts, so she’ll wait and see how some friends -- nurses -- react to their second doses. "I know people who have had COVID and spent four days with oxygen. I know they had a very bad time ... but I still want to wait and see if there are side effects (to the vaccine)."
Clinicians said mistrust also comes from knowing there were few people of color in the vaccine trials. In the trial for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, participants were 13% Latino, 10% African American, 6% Asian, and 1% Native American. Moderna’s trial population was 20% Hispanic, 10% African American, 4% Asian.
"We hope that the labs that are developing new vaccines will include more Latino patients in their trials," said Dr. Lucianne Marin, a pediatrician at Los Barrios Unidos Community Clinic in Dallas, one of 75 community centers in Texas that will provide vaccines in immigrant neighborhoods.
Marin and the rest of the Barrios Unidos staff have already received both doses -- injections that caused her "a bit of discomfort, fatigue, and a headache."
“Anything strange that enters the body can cause a reaction,” she said. “But one has to understand that the vaccine is not made from the live virus. It’s from genetic material that will help to generate antibodies. … I tell my patients that a fever or a pain in the body cannot be compared with the exposure to the coronavirus.”
The community clinics are out to debunk myths and dispel fears. They emphasize the greater risk of infection for Latinos who have chronic health problems like diabetes, hypertension, and excessive weight.
In doctor’s offices or in telemedicine visits they invite grandmothers to be champions in their families and spread the message about the need to get vaccinated. “Among Latinos, the elders of the family are highly respected and they are listened to; if they are convinced (of the vaccine), the family will be too,” Marin said.
Community health workers also share messages on Facebook, or partner with local Spanish-language media on virtual discussions featuring doctors and public officials -- even representatives from consulates of Latin American countries.
“It is our job to be the reliable messenger,” Marin said. “Vaccines are safe and free.”
Originally published here
Want to read this piece in Spanish? Click here
#English#Vaccine hesitancy#vaccination#covid_19#Barrios Unidos#Latinos#Hispanic#conspiracy theories#Bill Gates#Mexico#Mexican American
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Lyrica Withdrawal
When I was new to the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia, I really had no idea how many of the specialists I was seeing also had no idea. I naïvely assumed they knew what was best for me and in desperation, took their advice and went on medications that proved disastrous for me.
The Background:
The first medication I was put on was Lyrica (pregabalin) at a dose of 150 mg morning and 75 mg at night. I initially did feel some relief. For around six months I felt like the edge had been taken off. A few months after that, I came off drug cold turkey with no withdrawal effects. However, I did notice a return to a very bad baseline of pain and so I went back on the drug. It was definitely doing some good.
Fast forward a few years later and I'm suffering from severe withdrawal effects of the anti-depressant I was also put on (Cymbalta). It takes me nearly a year to come off that drug. It gives me a taste of what’s in store for me when I try to come off the Lyrica...
After being on pregabalin for six years, I I start noticing some things. If I accidentally miss a dose, I get terribly agitated and feel nauseous and sweaty. The symptoms disappear around half an hour after I take Lyrica again. This worries me, but I have so many other fires to fight in my life, I shelve that fear for now.
By year 7, I no longer feel as if the drug is doing anything for my pain (I don’t think it has done much in many years, actually, as I have long-suspected I built up a tolerance to it).
Instead, I want to take medicinal cannabis. I figure it would be best to come off Lyrica before I try new medicine. I see my regular doctor at the beginning of 2018 and express my desire to come off the drug as well as my concerns about withdrawal. Like most doctors, she is ignorant of its effects and tells me there are no withdrawals from Lyrica and I should be fine. She tells me it works in the central nervous system so what could possibly go wrong? It's not like it's an SSRI or anything. She tells me to take 25 mg out of my dose each week. Like a fool, I trust her and do this.
And So It Begins:
Getting from 150mg to 100 mg doesn't seem to do me much harm. I'm therefore lulled into a false sense of security that everything is going okay. In February, however, I start having depressive episodes and low mood. I start feeling hopeless and angry and anxious all the time. I have vivid night terrors. What's so insidious about the drug is that all this snuck up on me. The depression fell perfectly rational considering I was upset about being in a state of constant pain. I was recovering from foot surgery and could not do much exercise ot get out much. It was also extremely hot and so I was unable to leave the house for several days at a time. This is enough to upset most people. However, I wasn't just a bit blue: I went from being somewhat disgruntled with the situation to feeling suicidal, experiencing sudden spikes of intense emotion. I began to self-harm, randomly smashing my own face with my first. The spikes are so dramatic they take me unaware. One moment I'm talking casually to my partner on the phone, the next I’m banging my head against the wall screaming my lungs out. It's nothing that he said, it's just a sudden feeling of utter despair and anguish. During this terrible episode, I phoned the suicide hotline, wanting someone to talk me out of using the kitchen knives to end it all. What's so frightening is that I seem so ready to do it, as well. I've always been one of those people terrified of my own mortality, so for me to suddenly want to die with such intensity seemed a little odd. Thank goodness that little rational voice in my head guided me to the suicide hotline. The episode passed and I was left feeling completely numb inside.
Later, I began to have hallucinations where I would see things warp and shift before my eyes. I lost time. I often felt dizzy and had intense derealisation that scared me so much. This went on for about two weeks before I realised it was the drug that was doing this. I told my doctor and she instructed me to stabilise the dose immediately. She was utterly surprised that I’d had a reaction and kept reiterating that Lyrica doesn't have withdrawal effects. (Seriously, she was like a broken record!). I told her to do what I had done: go online and Google it. There are people suing Pfizer because of these effects. There are people who have wound up in hospital after suicide attempts or after blackouts where they lost their minds. There are people who’re addicted to the drug, suffering terrible anxiety if they don't get it.
The Truth About Lyrica:
I understand Lyrica can help some people, and to those people I wish you well and hope it continues to support you. But my stand on Lyrica is that it’s a HECK of a dangerous drug. It hijacks your body's ability to make certain chemicals so that you gets physically dependent on it. Pfizer has not told doctors about the withdrawal effects and they have exaggerated its benefits for chronic pain, too. There was certainly no mention of it in the leaflets when I first obtained the drug. But only a casual Internet search reveals innumerable horror stories of thousands of individuals who went through weeks or months of horrific symptoms trying to get off this drug. And like me, they were told time and time again by doctors that they can't possibly be experiencing the very real, very frightening effects of withdrawal.
The smallest dose of Lyrica that I can buy is 25 mg. I sincerely believe this is deliberate. I feel that if Pfizer made smaller doses, it would make tapering off the drug easier. After my bad experience, I stabilised my Lyrica and was too afraid to come off it. They got one more year of money out of me. I now have to pay Pfizer for the privilege of not going insane. Thanks to this wicked setup, I am dependent on a drug I no longer want to take and which is no longer doing me any good.
Back to my Story:
As mentioned in a previous post, 2018 was a hard year for me for many reasons, and the withdrawals only made it worse. Still, one glimmer of hope remained. My cannabis prescriber, a wonderful doctor I had the pleasure of meeting in June of last year, told me that the liver enzyme that processes cannabis is not the same that breaks down Lyrica, meaning I could take the drugs together. It takes a few months of titration, but finally I find a dose of cannabis that helps me sleep solidly for the first time in many years. Up until this point, I would wake up a dozen or more times in the night and maybe get around 4 to 5 hours collectively. On cannabis, I have 4 to 6 hours of unbroken sleep, which is almost a novelty to me. Unfortunately, one day I stuff up my cannabis dose and accidentally and very unexpectedly get extremely high. I know this sounds funny to many people, and even I can see the funny side of it. However, the sensations were really intense and I vividly hallucinated. All of this was very triggering as it reminded me of the derealisation and panicked feelings that I would get on Lyrica, so my response to feeling high was panic. I was paranoid and anxious and agitated for hours. I really disliked the sensations and felt out of control and incredibly scared.
Lyrica and Cymbalta “Ruined Drugs” For Me:
I am a firm believer that if I had not had such terrible experiences with both Lyrica and Cymbalta, I could handle the stoning effects of cannabis. I also feel that if I had known what to expect from a cannabis high, I would also have been less terrified. All that being said, the experience leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I drop back my cannabis dose. Over time I work back up to .4ml and for no discernible reason, I get high again. This time it is worse. I'm not as high as it was the first time as I am on a slightly smaller dose, but in the confusion and brainfog that it gives me, I forget to take my Lyrica. Unlike the first time, I can't seem to sleep through the night. I have restless legs, hot flushes, nausea, bad dreams when I do dose and just a general sees sense of foreboding. The first time I got high I noticed that I had a pleasant afterglow in the morning. The second time, however, I felt really rough. It was then that I realised that I had forgotten to take my night dose of Lyrica and that what I had been experiencing was a fantastic combination of being stoned and going through withdrawals. Needless to say, this did not help my emotional relationship with cannabis.
And so for the rest of 2018 and into 2019 I have been experimenting with my dose of cannabis. I am now on a much lower dose than I'd like to be, but it still helps me get around four hours of sleep but it's not enough to get me high. I think I’d have the courage to go up again if only I weren’t facing a frightening upcoming battle.
The Present Day and the Challenge I Now Face:
A week ago, I forget to take my Lyrica again. I missed my night dose and while the cannabis got me to sleep, I soon woke up feeling extremely depressed and anxious and tearful. My partner is sleeping in the living room due to the extremely hot nights we've been having. I wake up and tell him what's I am feeling. He holds me and then gasps, exclaiming that I feel like I'm burning up. I have terrible restless legs and cannot get to sleep, even though a cuddle from him normally is enough to settle me. I tell him that perhaps I am coming down with a fever and I should take a Nurofen. I switch on the lights, see my transparent pill box still full of pills, and realise I'd forgotten to take my Lyrica. I take it with a mix of relief and anger and despite having a near panic attack for the next half hour, eventually its effects kick in and I start to feel less strange. As I lie awake in bed that night waiting for sleep to claim me, I fear I'm never going to be able to get off this drug. Even missing it by a few hours gives me bad withdrawals…
In the light of day the following day, my mind has changed. I am furious at being held hostage by this drug and I refuse to go through this any longer. I am determined to come off Lyrica this year.
My Plan To Come Off Lyrica:
While the (much better informed) online community recommends reducing the dose by 10% every four weeks, this would mean opening up each capsule and somehow parsing out the exact ratio of powder into a new, gelatin capsule. My partner meticulously did this with the Cymbalta, only it was much easier as Cymbalta has beads in it, not powder (all he had to do was count out one bead per new capsule). Lyrica is much more challenging. Last year, he bought expensive, laboratory-level scales to try to measure out the powder and make up the capsules. But it took him about an hour to make up three pills. I saw how gruelling it was for him and decided I didn’t want to do it that way, or at least not that year when so much shit was hitting the fan.
Today, I have come to the conclusion that I don't want to waste any more time on this nonsense. I feel brave enough to come off by a 25 mg drop, only this time I'm going to do it every two months. I'm going to give my body time to adjust to the new dose before I attempt it again.
Last weekend, my partner and I were like generals looking at a map. We stared at the wall planner for 2019 before we marked out long weekends in January, April, June, September, and December. Some of them have public holidays on either side of the weekend whilst others my partner is going to use his annual leave for. We intend for me to drop my dose this Friday morning and he will be home to help me with any of the withdrawals. At least this time, someone will be there to restrain me if I decide I want to kill myself.
We are very alone in this struggle. There are no rehabilitation centres for drugs like Lyrica in Sydney. Most GPs don't even know it has withdrawal effects. Instead, we have to rely on the Internet and a number of Lyrica Withdrawals Support communities on Facebook and forums to help us with this process. The only doctor who has agreed with me that Lyrica is a difficult and dangerous drug is my cannabis prescriber. It point blank called it an “evil drug”. She has told me that CBD oil has been known to help with the withdrawal effects and this is something I have seen mentioned over and over again in the support forums. Many people swear by it. So yesterday, we spent $830 on three bottles of (legal) Canadian CBD oil to help me get through this process. Of course, we will have to keep paying for the Lyrica for the rest of the year, but I intend to make this the last year Pfizer takes our money.
Bracing For Impact:
Tomorrow is the day I drop my morning dose from 75 mg to 50 mg. I don't know what to expect. I mean, I do know what to expect, but I'm not sure if this drop is going to be as severe as previous occasions. After all, I'm not going to drop again until April. Still, the past few nights I have had really bad anxiety. At night, I contort my body into rigid shapes, waking up after 4 hours (when the cannabis is wearing off) to find my whole body in absolutely disgusting pain. I know why my body is doing this, though. I'm extremely tense at the moment, and extremely worried.
But I have to do this. It is time for me to slay this dragon.
Conclusion:
I wanted to make this post so that others are aware of the dangerous withdrawal effects of this drug. I totally understand there are many spoonies for whom this drug has been a boon and I'm glad for you I don't mean in any way to shame people for taking Lyrica or for having a good experience on it. But I do feel like I need to make a public service announcement about its dangers. If I had been warned of these withdrawal effects I may have reconsidered taking it. If I had known what to expect when coming off the drug, I would have tapered much better. I just want others to know that this can be a treacherous drug and that your doctor may not be able to help you. Please be careful.
And also, wish me luck…
Further Reading:
Whole Lawsuits Against Lyrica/Cymbalta companies have sprung up to meet demand.
https://www.enjuris.com/pharmaceutical-liability/lyrica-cymbalta-lawsuits.html
https://www.drugwatcher.org/lyrica-cymbalta-lawsuit/
Read more about the withdrawal symptoms of Lyrica at the blog Mental Health Daily
Read this comment thread on the forums of Chronic Pain Australia to get an idea of the challenges faced by someone trying to come off this medication.
Truly terrifying video on YouTube of BBC’s “Drugs Map of Britain” doco chronicling the pregabalin addiction crisis in Belfast.
youtube
#Lyrica#Lyrica withdrawal#pregabalin#pregabalin withdrawal#drug withdrawls#prescription drug withdrawals#Cymbalta#drug dependency#Fibromyalgia#spoonie#chronic illness#chronic pain#ignorant doctors#Pfizer#mydoctoralmostkilledme
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01-01-2022
My New Year's Resolution is to read and write more. I know I've made a similar resolution in the past, but reading and writing are so incredibly important to me, so I'm trying again. You can only fail if you don't try, right? Or is it you can't succeed if you don't try? Eh, could be either I suppose.
Today is New Year's Day of 2022. The time has flown by these past two years, especially concerning the coronavirus. It seemed we would never survive lockdown in March, April and May of 2020, but somehow most of us did. Even though over 850,000 Americans have died from coronavirus, I am lucky to not have lost any loved ones or family members...yet. I still have very stubborn relatives who absolutely refuse to get vaccinated, which is utterly ridiculous. I got my first and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine in February 2021 and my booster in August of 2021. Now there is talk about a second booster, but it hasn't yet been approved by the FDA or the CDC. So I will wait until they authorize that before getting another shot. I hope it is soon because I'm going to Las Vegas with my mom and Jeremy on February 7th to February 11th, and I don't want to have to worry about the Omicron variant anymore than I already am. We have postponed this trip twice due to coronavirus already, and I think I may go insane if we have to postpone again. I'm so fucking ready to get out of Missouri and have a nice, relaxing and exciting vacation! We are flying on Southwest Airlines out of Kansas City, and we are staying in a corner queen suite at the Luxor Pyramid. I'm so excited just to ride on the elevator up to our room because the elevator goes crooked as it ascends the height of the pyramid. This will be Jeremy's first time on an airplane, so I'm sure he's nervous, but I will be right beside him, comforting him, and feeding him Ativan if necessary. The day we are leaving, February 7th, is my mother's 83rd birthday, so we are going to celebrate that. Also, Jeremy's birthday is in April, so we will celebrate that as well. I cannot wait until we take off and then feel those airplane wheels touch down in the desert. Then I will feel free again.
I was diagnosed about a week and a half ago with iron-deficient anemia. I had to start taking iron and Vitamin C supplements. I had been feeling really weak and really fucking dizzy. In fact, I still am on and off. The nurse at my doctor's office told me it could take a good three or four weeks for my iron levels to reach the therapeutic stage. So it is just going to take time. Until then, Jeremy has been taking incredible care for me, basically catering to my every whim and need. He can be so absolutely wonderful sometimes.
However, I've still been talking to David. I wish that relationship weren't so fucking complicated. But I honestly believe David and I are written in the stars and cosmically belong together in this infinite universe of possibilities. Now whether that means in this life, I cannot say. Perhaps we already had our chance in this world and will just have to wait until the next world. Whichever it is, it seems like it is a million miles away and that makes my heart ache. We are more than soulmates, we are twin souls destined to remain forever intertwined. I honestly don't want to leave Jeremy for David at this point in time because I need to honor and respect the marriage vows between Jeremy and I. And I do love Jeremy. So very much. I just wish there was a way I could combine David and Jeremy into one whole person. I just don't want to choose. Not right now anyway. Not until David has a year sober and gainful employment. Then, maybe.
I have been assigned a social worker through the Family Guidance Center here in town. I'm also getting a therapist, but I'm on a waiting list. I hope this new social worker can help me with some goals and a workable treatment plan. I've been thinking about what goals I want to accomplish this year, things I "should" be, such as eating healthy, getting exercise, sticking to a schedule, bathing regularly, cleaning regularly and cooking meals (or doing meal prep once a week). I know I "should" be doing all of these things (and more), I just need help with accomplishing everything. Sometimes I just feel so fucking overwhelmed that I end up getting nothing done at all. Generally I wake up in the morning and the next thing I know, I'm on episode five or six of some show I've started binge watching. I certainly need to watch less television, especially the news. The news just stresses me out. However, I like to be informed about what's going on locally, in the country and throughout the world. The problem is, most of it is bad news, and that just brings me down. But I can no longer continue watching CNN for hours upon hours upon hours because it is just not good for my mental health.
It is snowing outside right now, and the wind chill is around -13. I worry about Jeremy having to get out in this weather to go to work, but I bought him a very warm coat, plus he has an automatic starter in his car. I told him to be very careful because the roads will be slick. I absolutely love snow, but I feel like I'm trapped inside the house right now. Hopefully I can get out tomorrow or Monday so I'm not going so damn stir crazy inside.
My cousin, Freddy, died the other day. He was diagnosed with Stage Four lung cancer this past summer. The authorities didn't know how long he had been dead when they found him. I don't even know the reason they checked on him. I guess someone must have called in and requested a welfare check. I don't really know who that would have been though because he's been estranged from most of his family for at least twelve years now. I feel sorry for him because his life was full of struggle and strife, starting with his mother's suicide in 1973. I don't think he was ever truly happy in his entire life, and that's just depressing. Maybe he's better off dead, I don't know. There are just going to be graveside services sometime this coming week, but nothing set in stone yet. I will be going with mom when and wherever they are.
I've been having a bajillion crazy thoughts lately. A few days ago, I kept seeing myself laying on a slab in the morgue, and today I kept seeing Jeremy in the same way. I hate it when these intrusive thoughts repeat over and over in my mind. Being bipolar, I constantly think my brain is trying to kill me anyway. My OCD and anxiety have been acting up really bad too. I'm hoping that will die down some since the holidays are over with now.
I really want to write a novel, but I don't know how to start. This is something I think about a lot. I guess since I never had children, that will be the only way to leave my mark on this world. A printed book will be proof of my life. I'm scared to write it and I'm scared I'll never write it. Maybe my new social worker and therapist will help me get started with this. I do know that when I do write it, it is going to be very painful for me to relive some of the most tragic times of my life. And I don't necessarily want it to be a true autobiography because I think a mythoautobiograpy would be better. I want it to be mostly truth with a little bit of fiction thrown in. Sort of like Audre Lorde's book "Zami: A New Spelling of My Name."
I'm getting hungry now and I just realized I need a new book light if I'm going to start reading more. Maybe I'll order one now. Until then...
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