I try to write a decent-lengthened post every time out, but today I am in too much pain to jot down more than a few cursory thoughts. I am no stranger to discomfort, but today I am in physical pain, not in psychiatric pain. Though I wanted to leave quarantine desperately, I am beginning to wish that I had not. I’m beginning to wish that I had waited longer for medical science to have worked out the bugs and the kinks with our currently available vaccines.
We were all understandably impatient with the pandemic in a very short time. In the beginning, some of us believed in worst-case scenario—a super virus that would prove to be our totally annihilation. But as time passed and more was understood, we recognized that while we were in the middle of a tragedy, we were not part and parcel of a Malthusian nightmare. More people died than ever should have, but eventually the almighty dollar led to the development of vaccines that are rapidly putting back in place the status quo antebellum, or restoring matters to the status that we once took for granted. None of us really knows what will change forever and what will return more or less to the times before COVID.
I had my first Modern vaccine at the end of last month. My second was yesterday, and I am already regretting it. Not regretting it because I don’t want to be well, but that it has made me incredibly sick. I have nausea, fatigue, and congestion. The site of the jab into my left arm is painful to move and bend. But this is what happens when we want immediate results. My body is producing antibodies like crazy and I have no clue when I’ll start feeling better. The first shot was not nearly this bad, but then I had heard anecdotally that the second Moderna shot can produce ample side effects.
I hope we have no more pandemics for a good long while. I’ve had enough of one for a lifetime. So in the meantime I return to my sickbed and wait out the way that I feel right now. I have been no stranger to pain in my life. Once I tried to come off of an antidepressant cold turkey because I was tired of having to taper it down to nothing. That was the worst I had ever felt in my life, so I suppose things could be worse. When it comes your time to be vaccinated, I hope you don’t experience what I am right now.