I got my COVID shot! It’s almost time to go back to Life
I got mine on April 10 at a hospital vaccine clinic, where they gave out J&J–yes, right before it got yanked. This was the kind of thing I feared would happen right before my appointment, so I’m just glad I got mine in time. Still, I’ve had zero problems with the vaccine so far, and hope that it will quickly be available again, so it can help vaccinate all the people in places and countries that can’t do two shots or a deep freeze.
I saw some Net rumors about the J&J affecting menstrual cycles–Nope, none of that, either.
The hubby’s fully vaccinated now. My son is about to get his first shot. (He’s under 18, Pfizer-only, so this was the earliest I could get him a shot.) For this household at least, the COVID threat is finally going away.
When I got the shot, I had 24 hours of mild flu-like symptoms, then they all just went away. It took about 11 hours before I even started to feel feverish; before then it was just a bad headache and a sore arm. My fever spiked to 100.7 overnight but soon dropped back down to normal, with the slightest bit of nausea that disappeared about 24+ hours after the shot. Then I had a sore shoulder for several days. But imagine: If I ever got COVID, it would probably be much worse than that.
My “robust” immunity (72% against severe illness) is supposed to kick in within 15 days–which means just in time for Easter! I plan to attend Palm Sunday services next week, and then all the Holy Week services I can manage. How fitting for my re-entry into the World again! A couple more weeks, and my immunity should be up around 85%, then 90-95% a month later. I’m not sure yet when I’ll start sharing the Communion spoon again. Immunity against hospitalization and death is at 100% on May 8. It’s also doing great against variants. And with only one shot, it seems like the best vaccine all-around. So forget the naysayers about the J&J vaccine: They don’t have all their data.
One of those naysayers was one of my oldest friends–friends with my other friends, friends with my husband, plays D&D with him–taking potshots on Facebook. First she took the usual snotty Tr**per tone, not concern or questioning like another of my friends, but more of a “Sure take a vaxx of only 66% effectiveness against an illness with only a slight chance of killing you” tone (not an exact quote BTW).
I come back on Facebook and find this, along with her arguing with TWO of my other (not mutual) friends. So I delete the entire fight. Come back later, ALL MY OTHER FRIENDS are liking and hearting and hugging the post, while she uses a laugh emoji instead. *SIGH*
I can’t delete reaction emojis, so I blocked her from that post and all those thereafter–my way of putting people into Facebook Timeout without actually unfriending or blocking them. (She’s been in Timeout before, BTW.) I checked the Facebooks of a couple of mutual friends who are also liberal and also got their shots, and there was absolutely nothing snotty there from this person. Sure they could’ve deleted snotty comments, but you can’t delete the reaction emojis, and there were no laughs on their posts. So I get to be the lucky one. Story of my life.
The Tr**p Era has turned a lot of people I once liked into Tr**per bullies. And before Tr**p was the Walker Era, which also drove friends and family members apart in Wisconsin, but the Tr**p Era seems to have made it even worse. Then the pandemic came along and it got to a breaking point. I’ve unfriended people in the last year and probably got unfriended as well, since some people stopped responding to my posts. I don’t dare go through my friends list, so I’m often pleasantly surprised to see who still shows up in comment sections and birthday notifications.
And the ones who are still there–I swear, it seems like just when I finally unfriend somebody for being what my mom would call a Pill, somebody else jumps in to take their place. I have such a low tolerance for right-wing bullshit these days. I shut down conversations and sometimes boot people when it starts up. Losing friends and getting annoyed with people was manageable before when everything was online, but going back to Writing Club could be dicey. At least I didn’t see any trouble with people from church.
I spend more time on Twitter and blogs these days, hanging out with my buddies like Sam (who is NOT a catfish: Meri Brown is lying) and Giacomo (of Orthodoxy in Dialogue) and Hairball and Kate and Wondering Eagle and Headless Unicorn Guy and others, and keeping an eye on my favorite timelines, like Christopher Titus and Angry Staffer and now John Kovalic (Dork Tower guy–He’s from Madison!). Over there, you can find sane conservatives like Charlie Sykes and Bill Kristol and Joe Walsh. They’re still conservatives and can potentially drive me crazy politically, but they see right through Tr**p and GOP lies. They also provide articles I can post for my conservative friends on Facebook, my “mission field.” 😉
Meanwhile, I take a quick swing over to Chris’ Facebook page….Still a bunch of fake crap. Complete lack of knowledge about how science or vaccines work. Spreading bullshit that’s going to get lots of people killed or disabled. Usual arrogance of the ignorant. Nothing new here. And the former narc blogger, now QAnon blogger, is getting more and more insane. She seemed sane once upon a time; what the heck happened to her??!!
But hey, after a year of hermitting, I have not only gotten a much-needed break from the World–which had been tiring out this introvert before the pandemic–but my whole household has successfully evaded the Plague. We have a chance to see another 50 years of life (and without COVID-related disabilities). My husband and I are fully vaccinated, and my son is about to start his rounds tomorrow. It did hit my mom and brother, but they survived. My mom, however, said, “You don’t want COVID!” It made believers out of my mom and brothers, so they’re all vaccinated now. I believe my in-laws have also been vaccinated. So no, not all Republicans are Covidiots.
Now, back to reading Les Misérables. It’s getting late and I’ve barely started the day’s reading yet. But this book is awesome. I saw the movie with Liam Neesom 20 years ago; now I’m finally reading this massive chunk of a book. Yet it’s still nowhere near as long as Clarissa. (My copy of Clary is so huge that it finally fell apart under its own weight, so I have it on my Kindle now.) Speaking of long things that not everybody gets, I just saw Tenet. Amazing special effects, and hey, Kenneth Branagh! Awesome movie if you don’t get too hung up on it all making sense the first time. Turn the captions on, use the back button, take your time. And read this when you’re done.