You know, this is a tough one... (but it really shouldn't be)
I've read the whole thread - and it took quite some time., but it's been eye opening. Now I feel that even though this is going to be lengthy, there's so much I need to get off my chest!
The OP's
original question was about everyone's experience with the vaccine. (To answer that question first, sore arm the first day,
really sore arm the second day, just like any other shot on the third, nothing on the fourth. And a bit of fatigue but all worth it IMO. I'll explain.)
I got a vaccine as soon as I could, to the point of spending the better part of a week at the end of February hunting down an appointment as soon as I met the eligibility criteria. BUT it's not just out of a fear or, as some here might infer, brainwashing that I changed my mind. from waiting to now's fine...
When this first started and there was talk of vaccines, I was very much in the camp of "Uh, I think I'll wait, thanks!". But then we watched an ambulance take our neighbor away. She came back a week later, physically fine but emotionally scarred, by her own admission. And then my cousin's wife went into the hospital with what was surely "a bad cold" - and after 21 days of hell never came out the front door. Last fall the number of people I knew or heard about that were badly affected kept growing. Oh, the effect runs the gamut. My daughter realized that she couldn't smell peanut butter - which she thought was "cool" - and after a few days in bed was back to normal.
So it happens. Different people react differently - no one, and I mean NO ONE can predict which side of the fence you'll be on, especially you.
Day I got there was the second day that they were giving out J&J vaccines. Yep, I had reservations. And they were allayed literally when I got into the car and heard a news report (on NPR, for the record!) that no one had died from COVID.
And I was excited!
Yep, my
personal bar is set that f*ing low!
A number of years ago now, I was going along fat, dumb, and happy when a funny tonsil turned from suspected tonsillitis to follicular lymphoma, (a variant of Non Hodgkin's). First tip: anything that ends in 'oma' is not good. Skipping ahead a bit, my doc gave me something called Rituimab - a
relatively new (see where I'm going with this?) treatment. In the "pre-rituximab era" my life expectancy was around 7 years. Now, there's no time limit. Tip [HASH=460]#2:[/HASH] anything that ends in - mab is a
monoclonal antibody, an antibody made by cloning a unique white blood cell. Sounds like voodoo, right - something we should be leery of? Well then, you'd better not read about CAR-T cancer treatment - that shit's
out there, way cool, and a life saver. How's this relate to COVID? Personally, seeing its ravages I sure as hell wasn't going to go through a nightmare to beat cancer only to lose the fight to some dumb flu!!!
Oh, I know, odds of it killing me if I get it aren't 100%, far from it. But I buy lottery tickets too.
And then there's the thought of me inadvertently spreading it - to my wife, my kids, my 92 year old mother, my wife's 95 and 99 year old parents. Yeah, I had a lot of reservations but especially when I factored that into the equation, it just made sense. I couldn't live with myself if I'd been responsible for one of them getting sick. That cousin's wife that died? Her son and grandson both tested positive after what turned out to be
false negatives. In the meantime, she got sick. How do you think their lives are these days?