Letters to WYA 12

Imagine getting vaccinated in one of those skinny little arms and still smiling and waving a wine glass about.

Hello WYA! Just when you think I must have nothing to tell you, here I am again! Making nothing much into many many words. I’ve been writing about this less-than-an-hour-long experience for over a week! Then I thought it’s too bloody boring to publish, and THEN I changed my mind. Not about the boring part, but about the sharing part. Because minds are made to be changed. If you choose to skip to the end now I completely understand.

On Saturday, the very last day of April, W and I had two appointments booked at 10:50 and 11:10 a.m. for our second covid vaccination booster shots. All our other shots were done at a busy health care center and they were super strict there about arrival times and identification and appointment confirmations and new masks which they supplied, even if you had just put on a brand new mask in your car less than five minutes ago. There was a long winding queue with arrows and social distancing lines on the floor, with 3 check-in desks to report to before you finally got to an injection station where you roll up your sleeve and they give you your needle. It’s also the spot where someone has to tell me to take a deep breath and relax because apparently by that point my muscles are all ridiculously tense without me being aware of it. And the needle could bounce right off my arm or break or something. No one has adequately explained to me why relaxing is mandatory but I do my best. After the shot you are directed to the waiting room where they trust you to sit for 20 minutes before you leave the building. If you’re going to faint and knock yourself out they would like you to do it there and not in the parking lot or halfway home. I have never made it past 15 minutes because I’m totally done with the whole procedure by then and no one is paying any attention to me so what the hell. I get up and leave.

I told you all this so it can be added to my incredibly exciting life story, but mostly so it will be super easy for you to appreciate how very different Saturday’s experience was. When you book these appointments on line you are wise to take the first ones they offer, so that’s what I did. They are good to book you as close to where you live as possible. So on the appointment day we drove to a little pharmacy we’d both never heard of before, tucked away in a little strip mall I’ve never noticed, 5 minutes from our house. The store was about the size of our living room/kitchen, including the pharmacy area and the little tiny procedure room. The waiting area was three joined chairs against a wall, the middle chair occupied by the only other customer there when we arrived, five minutes before our first appointment. The pharmacist said hello, please to wait, I will be several many minutes. This was after I said who we were and why we were there and tried to show him my confirmation e-mail on my phone but he really wasn’t too interested. He nodded politely and I’m pretty sure he smiled behind his mask, and then he went back to putting a prescription order together. So, about (several many) (ten or so) minutes later, having taken care of his customer, he gave us clip boards with paper work to complete. Our personal info was already on them so we just needed to check all the boxes and sign them. We sat in two of the waiting area chairs which had just been vacated to do this. Meanwhile he prepared the vaccines. He collected the papers, told us both to come in. He asked us if we had any bad reactions to any of our previous vaccinations and we both said no. There was just his chair and one patient chair, so I sat down and got my shot, then W. sat down and got his shot. Then we all said thank you and have a nice day and we left.

So I was thinking on the drive home (during which time neither one of us passed out or fainted) wow, have we been taking ourselves way too seriously or what? That was as simple as getting a flu shot. We were back home by 11:30. I didn’t even have time to get freaked out and tense. Neither of us had any adverse reaction that day or the next, but on Monday we were both complaining of aching muscles – shoulders, knees, wrists, necks, eyeballs – anywhere muscles exist. It didn’t last long. So for whatever good it does us, we are well and truly vaccinated and boosted to the max.

Family came over today and bought us lunch after they reminded me it’s Mother’s day. I love a laid back relaxing day with no fuss and appreciate so much that they know that. We couldn’t sit outside because the wind is brisk and cold, but the sun is shining and the grass is mostly green. I will probably not have any more vaccination stories to tell you in the future. So all of us have something to be grateful for.

Love and sunshine wherever you may be.

Oh, and this. THIS is worth sharing.

XXOO