VACCINE HESITANCY: the comedy

What was I thinking?

Six in one day! A brand-new twist in vaccine hesitancy!

My delicate senior arms looked liked wrinkled pin cushions. I was sore, whiny, sleepy, and felt like I was coming down with something or everything. My immune system was on high alert. What to do?

It was a quick trip to my local fave CVS to pick up two prescriptions and the pharmacy tech said you’re due to get vaccines, note plural… I said: “No, I’m good. I got both COVID vaccines Pfizer one and two and two boosters and the COVID omicron teaser after all of that.

We laughed! I’ ll get the pharmacist and he can come talk to you; your insurance should cover everything and we have time in the walk-in schedule and can get you in right now. No waiting!

I felt like I had won the lottery. I had just had my primary care visit and she said I needed tetanus and shingles and when they “rang” me up they said my Medicare wouldn’t cover the vaccines. I said what about my blue cross blue shield. She shrugged her shoulders, my eyes glazed over. I was spared. No needles!

So … the pharmacist said let me check you in. I gave my last name and date of birth and voila I could get six all in one day right now. All “free” and covered by my insurance. I was a senior at risk for something or anything. A moment of fear of loss.

So, he smiled and said he could do three and three in each arm, just give him a minute and I can get you right out while you’re waiting for your script.

I smiled and said OK I could get it over and done in one quick visit. So he ran through the alphabet soup of three and three and I sat behind the no privacy screen to wait my turn.

I began to think of the little babies who may get at least eleven in their chunky little thighs and was reminded why even as a nurse, pediatrics was off limits for me. They cried cause I was a smiling woman who would hurt them.

So he came back with his little basket full of needles, alcohol swabs, and bandages. He did the right arm first: three thin pricks. Uncomfortable but so quick I barely whined and then he went to the left arm three sticks each more stingy and painful and burning than the last. I howled LOUDLY and he said see why I did those last. If I started there first, you would have said stop and run out of the building.

I asked which one it was, I don’t remember what he said, I got four Band-Aids for my six pricks, no CANDY OR STICKER and I was out of there.

I was fine initially and home by four. I had a ZOOM appointment at 4:30PM, it was all good! By my very late bed time shortly after midnight; I felt like I had been run over. My nose was running constantly and though extra extra sleepy, I couldn’t lie on either side because my arms were hot and throbbing.

Yikes … my immune system was on fire red alert. Armed for duty with the mini version of having every possible disease I had just been protected from.

What a lucky girl I was! I had the flu, pneumonia, Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B, shingles and tetanus all at once and I would actually live to tell the elder tale. I wanted to die with the pounding headache that would not go away until I had the delayed foresight to take two Alleve two full days later after the immune power brigade was literally armed up.

So the moral of this now humorous story is I don’t really have vaccine hesitancy, just warranted justifiable hesitation when I have a lapse of good sense and poor cellular memory of what our immune systems are boldly designed to do when provoked.

I am absolutely certain that the pump is now properly primed, and I am spared an array of infectious diseases. But I will never ever ever have six vaccines at once again. I will carefully consider the alternatives, be kind and gentle with myself.

I will go straight to my bed with my book, do not pass go, and rest and hydrate until it’s all over. But like I said, I will never ever ever have six vaccines at once again even if they are on sale at CVS. I will consider the alternatives and be kind to myself and just go home and go to bed until the madness passes.