Yesterday, after weeks and months of waiting, I finally got my chance to get vaccinated against Covid-19. One of the side effects unfortunately turned out to be blistered feet, who would have though! Mind, the blisters were most likely caused by me being late and having to run a couple of kilometers in slippery sneakers, but still!
Today I have a sore arm and a light headache with photophobia – much like the first stages of a cold. Sara had similar symptoms, and if I follow her trajectory I’ll be fine in a day or so. But today I’m spending in bed, catching up on reading.
I came down with Corona a couple of months ago, and it left me really ill for two weeks. I’ve been in worse pain before – nothing matches the agony of a proper stomach bug – but never as prolonged as this. My O2 levels never dipped below 90% but my fever was spiking terribly – at one point I got to 39.5°C and then dropped to 35.5°C in less than an hour, a whirlwind tour of cold sweat and violent shivering, an interesting albeit freightening experience. My breathing was laboured and I got winded just by standing up, not to mention the general fatigue, racking cough and all the other small miseries. Even after the acute symptoms subsided, my lungs felt broken for months afterwards – as if covered in sticky goop – and my sense of smell is still weak and limited in range (the other day I sniffed turpentine – nothing).
I’ll rather suffer any side effects of the vaccine than risk that again, and given that most people seem to tolerate it well I take comfort in the statistics and use this occasion to stay in bed, reading and closing down some of the 150+ browser tabs that I’ve been promising myself I’ll get to shortly…