A rare Diary from me, but I feel strongly about this …
This is for all those who are sensible, and really don't like being stabbed with sharp objects.
I'm with you, all the way. I don't have tattoos, if there is a needle anywhere in the vicinity I try really hard to avoid it. This is the normal, human condition.
However, the last thirteen months have been awful, and they have been much worse for many people than they have for me. My family has just about had enough income. We didn't suffer job losses. The small child (she is 18), caught COVID but had mild symptoms and was gracious enough not to pass it on to Jodie or me. We have suffered little more than a good deal of inconvenience. That has been tempered by watching others suffer tremendously, through no fault of their own, yet feeling frustrated that there was noting we could do to help them.
Well now there IS something we can do, so we were anxious to go and get stabbed (twice) as quickly as we possibly could. We can all do this tiny thing. It costs nothing, the vaccine is readily and freely available (or will be soon), and you are helping everyone you love. Everyone.
I know there are those among us who have their own views about vaccines. I know there are also people who see "Big Government" in everything proposed. Those people are not going to stop me from doing the right thing. The right thing for me, the right thing for my community, my country and the world around us. Those people appear to have forgotten the polio epidemics, the measles deaths and the fact that infant mortality rates plummeted in the 1950s and 60s because ... we started vaccinating children. So, quite frankly, unless and until they come up with peer-reviewed research that informs us that vaccines are an issue, then I'm sorry, they are just wrong ... on so many levels.
So yeah, I got vaccinated despite my sincere desire to not be poked with sharp implements, and it was easy. If businesses, government buildings, schools, colleges, concert halls and sports stadiums demand I show them proof of that, or a genuine medical exemption, I will refuse to see it as "Big Brother". I will not accept the argument that it is racist, sexist, anythingist. I will see it as those places caring about the health of us all, just as I do. I do not, by the way, apply that standard to the manner in which the vaccine is being rolled out. I think we need to do a great deal more to proactively take the vaccine to ALL communities, and all countries.
For the record ... I didn't even feel the first stabbing incident and had zero apparent reaction to it. It really was that easy. I drove up to the location, received the shot, waited 15 minutes and drove away. I have waited longer in the drive-thru for "fast" food than that.
The second shot was in a local pharmacy. It was just as straight-forward as the first. I woke up that night with a fever and generally felt like I had flu. My fever spiked to 104.5F and my skin hurt to touch. It's now twenty-four hours later. I feel back to normal. My temperature this morning was 98.5F and other than being a little weary, I am just fine ... I am also vaccinated.
It's all I can do, so I did it, and so should you.
I'm tired of the disease. I'm weary of watching the death totals rise. They are not my family, but they are someone's family and that bothers me a lot.
I could say "It hasn't happened to me so I don't care".
What I really think is that it shouldn't happen to anyone, and that's why I care!