COVID-19 Chronicles: My Vaccination Day

 05 July 2021

What's it like on Vaccination Day in our local district?

Read More to find out!

After many months of staying indoors and waiting for a chance to get vaccinated, the time has come. Vaccination days have been ongoing for the past months but lines were too long because everyone wants to be vaccinated. 

But today, we heard from our friendly neighbors that lines were short at the nearest vaccination health center so I went. You can't imagine my emotions at that point. I was scared, nervous, and excited as well. Scared because I don't really know what the side effects really are because these are new vaccines. Nervous because health officers will be asking a lot of questions and I'm really anxious about face-to- face interactions even though we've got face masks and shields on. Excited because at least, in my head, there's a modicum of protection against the Covid-19 virus.

Anyway, as soon as I entered the school, I was handed a ticket and I was patient #1357 and that was still lunchtime. As you can see, there are a lot of people waiting in line for their turn at the first step, the Interview part. There are 10 seats per row and we move one row forward every time a seat becomes vacant. It's pretty orderly although as you can see from the pictures, not everyone keeps their face shield on. They did get called out for it.   

So when I finally got on to the stage, I presented the ticket and the health workers recorded my Blood Pressure and body temperature and just asked the regular questions about having experienced Covid symptoms prior to this day. I presented certain medical documents to prove that I had medical comorbidities because "comorbidities" is one of the categories of people who were prioritized for vaccination at that time. The others included Medical Frontliners, senior citizens, and essential sector frontliners. 

In contrast to the long wait for screening, the vaccination itself was a breeze. There were about 5-7 health workers administering the vaccine. On the tables were the notice about your vaccination dose and when your 2nd dose will be. In my case, it would be on August 2nd. 

After that, we were asked to stay in the waiting room for fifteen minutes just in case some allergies or side effects were to appear. We were also informed about precautions we had to take after the vaccination, like not massaging the vaccination point and that it was normal for it to be stiff for a while. We were also told to hold off on drinking alcohol for the next few days to the dismay of all the people in the room hahaha

When the 15 minutes were up. I just walked out of there and went home. 

The side effects that I felt were mostly stiffness and heaviness on my vaccinated arm and I had some fever for a couple of days. My body was generally exhausted, I guess you could say. I just wanted to lay in bed for about a week. After that, everything was normal.

Must not forget to get that 2nd dose on August 2nd. 

Tune in later!!