The Adventure of the Covid-19 Vaccination

Sometimes things don’t quite end up going as you imagine them. Shortly after discovering I was going to be able to have the Covid vaccination, I had a thought about a blog post. Knowing that I would probably have received the vaccination before most people that read this, I thought it would be a good opportunity to reassure people and I would write about how easy it was and how I had, at worst, minor side-effects. But that’s not what happened.

I’m well aware that there is a lot of debate at the moment about who should be next in line for receiving the vaccinations, and I don’t think there’s really any right answers to that. In reality everybody needs to have it soon as possible (at least it now looks like we'll all have had it by August). All I know is that due to the high risk of working with children with special needs that are vulnerable and unable to socially distance, I found myself suddenly eligible to have the vaccination. To my surprise, I found I was able to book to have it the very next day and that’s how last Saturday morning I found myself sitting in a local pharmacy.

There was quite a novelty to actually being in a different location and it turned out that the local pharmacy is tiny and I was the only person in there. Soon I was called into a tiny room and after checking that I was healthy I was given the vaccine. I hadn’t really been looking forward to the prospect of having a needle stuck in my arm but it was actually surprisingly quick and painless, though perhaps compared to giving blood, which I do regularly, it’s not so bad. I was told that it was the AstraZeneca vaccine and was asked to wait 10 minutes before I drove away which I did and felt perfectly normal before heading home.

So far, so good. I was aware that many people do get mild side-effects from the vaccine. A headache seems to be fairly common as does an ache in the arm and slightly less common is a feeling of nausea. I was prepared for a period of feeling uncomfortable but what followed was totally unexpected.

I had takeaway pizza for dinner at my Mum and Dad’s as is usually the case on a Saturday night and I found myself suddenly full-up, which is unusual for me as I have quite the appetite. I began to feel a little shaky but at this point it was fairly mild and I still felt perfectly okay to drive home. About an hour later I began to feel sick and next thing I knew I was throwing up. Now obviously being sick is pretty unpleasant but it’s not too horrendous. The problem was though that I continued to be sick for the next five hours pretty much continuously, which feels like it ought to be an exaggeration but isn’t.

Without going too much into details, it’s fair to say that it was hugely unpleasant. I reached the stage where I was beginning to feel quite dehydrated and delirious and I just about managed to make a call to get someone to be with me as I was starting to worry about being alone. Eventually every last drop of nutrition within my stomach had been violently ejected and I managed to fall asleep, though that was interrupted by a brief extra period of vomiting.

Being violently sick for so long didn’t do my body any favours. It took over three days to really begin to feel normal again, with my chest in particular really sore from what I had to go through. I was so weak that I could barely manage a short walk to the local park. It was honestly the most ill I’ve ever felt in my life. 

I was in two minds about whether to talk about this as I realise that none of this is particularly reassuring to those yet to have the vaccine. I have however done a little bit of research and I’ve actually failed to find any mention of a reaction like mine, which suggests that it’s pretty rare. One in 10 people do end up being sick but there is a world of difference from simply being sick to the severity of what happened to me. I think I just have to accept that I was incredibly unlucky and blame my overzealous immune system which has long decided to use nausea as a weapon to fight any potential infection from earaches and chickenpox when I was little to copious amounts of alcohol when I was older (as my university housemates can confirm). 

I’m now trying to work out my feelings towards the vaccine having been through this. I wish I hadn’t had such horrific consequences but I realise that as ill as I was, it might still have been nothing compared to if I’d have got Covid. As awful as it was, I was fine within four days and the NHS say that symptoms never last more than a week.

I’m also aware of the fact that the more people that have the vaccine, the quicker we will be out of lockdown and have a chance to maybe get back to normality. Sure, there was probably a brief moment around the time I wondered if I needed to call for a paramedic that I probably wished I hadn’t had it but even as I sat around in my weakened state I was still glad I had the vaccine. 

The vaccine changes your mentality a little- at least it did mine. Whilst I'm still following the rules of lockdown and social distancing like the good little boy I am, I don't feel quite the same minor anxiety every time I inadvertently pass closer to someone on the street than I would have liked. My thought process has changed from "stay away from me, you potentially infectious stranger" to "it's fine, I've had the vaccine". It will be a few weeks before the protection is at it's highest and obviously I'll need the second dose in twelve weeks time (which I am already dreading) but there's a lovely feeling of safety that I haven't had for essentially a year now. In conclusion: get vaccinated.