Jabbed!

It's an expression I nicked from our friends in the UK. Jabbed. Thanks to our local medical clinic, I was able to make two appointments back to back for Wayne and I to get our COVID vaccines. Using the guerrilla phone tactics I remembered from trying to get an appointment at the Women’s Health Center in San Francisco back in the 70s, I called our facility right at their opening, 8:00 a.m. Easy-peasy! Compared to the stories I'd read about waiting in hour-long, drive-through lanes at the county Expo, we were lucky. Our appointments were in four days!
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We arrived at the La Clinica facility on time and there were maybe a half-dozen other people there. The staff was friendly, competent, and had us out of there barely a half-hour later, including the 15-minute wait for any possible reactions to the Moderna vaccine we received.

Later on, though, I began to feel the effects. I became tired, sluggish, and sore all over. All low-key, but still, it felt like I had a touch of the thing I was getting vaccinated against. I’ve reacted more to a flu shot than I’ve ever experienced the actual flu, so I’m used to having a healthy-as-a-horse status. Plus I knew that I wasn’t actually ill. After several hours of working on my dolls, I discovered an intense need for chocolate.
“Surely that will get me out of this purgatory of vaccine reaction,” I thought.
Still in my work clothes, pants and shirt dusted with the remnants of paper-clay dust, I drove into town in search of the remedy. Again, most unusual for me. I never go into town in work clothes!

I returned with a couple of It’s Its, a delicious and thoroughly decadent ice cream treat from San Francisco, available at our local grocery. I  spent the rest of the day sluggish, sleepy, slightly sore, and thinking about little else than the It’s It I planned to eat after dinner. Wayne was having little to no reaction, so I talked him into cooking us a frozen pizza. After we devoured our dessert treats, I fell asleep at around 8:30 p.m.

Today, the next day, I still feel a little punky, but glad to be vaccinated. Our next visit is in a month. My friends tell me the reaction from the second dose is worse, so I plan on generously stocking up on chocolate beforehand.

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