Pfinally Pfizer'd
Briepf pfever is pfine with me
#GetVaccinated, I did!
I couldn’t resist going pfull #TeamPfizer in my subject line, but I’m pfinished with that now, I promise. Really.
I had dose #2 of the Pfizer COVID19 vaccine this past Friday evening, and given reports that people are skipping their second doses because they’re afraid of the side effects, I decided to share mine.
Three weeks ago I got dose #1, and had literally no reaction. My arm got more sore after my flu shot this year. My s.o. had a sore arm for a bit, right at the injection site, but that was it for them too.
I had heard like everyone else that the second dose came with heavier side effects than the first (although I’d heard this most often in reference to the Moderna vaccine) and this is why I had scheduled both of our shots to be on a Friday at the end of the day. And then made sure I didn’t have anything significant planned for the weekend.
We trotted off dutifully this Friday evening to get shot #2, and upon getting home we immediately took some Tylenol. I drank water, and I moved my arm around quite a bit, but that was all I did.
Felt fine all evening, stayed up too late, woke up too early, so with five hours of sleep I did feel tired in the morning. I took another dose of prophylactic Tylenol at 6AM and deposited myself on our couch for some potato-ing. I had a real-live haircut scheduled for 2PM, but otherwise nothing on the agenda.
It was a chilly morning, and sometime around 11-ish (so, 17 hours past shot) my hands and feet…which always run a little cold, started to feel like ice cubes. but my face, that was hot. Reader, should I have gone and popped some more Tylenol right then, given it had been five hours since my last dose? Yes, I think so. Instead, I turned on my space heater and stuck my feet right in front of it.
I went to my hairdresser as planned, and got there about 15 minutes early, so I sat in my car. The warmth felt great for my ice cube extremities, but my face felt hotter and hotter. And that combo of hot and cold contributed to a general sense of malaise.
Had a quick haircut (no shampoo, no blowdrying, so…literally just a cut) and arrived home around 3PM (so, hour 21 past shot) feeling pretty ragged. At this point my lower back and ankle joints…which are usual achy spots for me…were acting up. Maybe they felt more achy than normal, or maybe I was just super aware of it because how I was feeling less than stellar otherwise. I finally took that Tylenol dose I should have taken earlier.
Then I napped.
I slept for 3-4 hours, and when I got up at 7-ish (24+ hours post-shot) I felt myself again.
Six hours of feeling meh, half of which I slept through, is more than worth knowing I am 99.99% likely (per what’s happening out in the real world of tens of millions of vaccine recipients, not the trials) to NOT get COVID that is symptomatic enough that I need a doctor, if at all. That 99.99% is the real number…5800 cases bad enough to report out of 100MM+ recipients.
FTR: The s.o. had a sore arm again, and that’s it.
What’s your vaccine story? I want to hear how it went for you!
Last week-ish
Episode 54 of The Op-Ed Page podcast dealt with my impending fully vaccinated status, and what that was going to mean for my day-to-day life. I’m afraid it may not mean much for a while, and that’s partly because of safety, and partly because as an #undercoverintrovert, I am having trouble imagining how to people again. I’d like to normalize these feelings of anxiety. I’m willing to sound neurotic, so you won’t feel alone if you’re feeling neurotic :)
So, do me a favor and take a listen.
Coming this week-ish
Oh. Do I have a lot to say about this post from the founder of Basecamp about how they’re changing the company’s relationship with their employees. That will be episode 55 of The Op-Ed Page. Please read the post in all its ignominy to have the context. You also might want to read this article I wrote last year after Coinbase’s CEO went a similar route. And you know what? White male CEOs are absolutely digging this new leaf these guys are turning over. But when the only people praising and emulating you are other people just like you, while everyone else is basically aghast, that should tell you something. My only fear is that it’s telling this CEO and guys like him something he really likes.
Hence my tweet yesterday:
As kind of an antidote, I am doing a Clubhouse chat with my friend and Radical Empathy author Dr Terri Givens this Friday at 2PM PT about Radical Empathy meeting Road Map for Revolutionaries…how to take all these feelings you have caring about issues and stuff and try to make an effective difference. Join us!
Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on all of the above. And as always I appreciate a share of this newsletter or my podcast.
And if you think I can help you break through the things that are keeping you stuck, you can always set up your first introductory 30-minute consult for free by booking it in my Calendly.
Have a great week-ish!
got the one shot big Janssen. Zero reaction
#feelinggreat
Moderna here. First shot, some brief soreness day of, then nothing until a week later when I had the dreaded Moderna arm rash/itching/warmth for 36 hours or so.
Second shot: More tired than usual, slight fever, for a couple of days, but whether that was chronic health condition, grandma camp, or Moderna--hard to say. What I can say is this: I 100% would do it again and will help anyone find an appointment. Whether my antibodies "stick" because of my medications is hard to say. But, I feel better knowing that I have at least tried, that others in my family are vaccinated, etc.