That 2nd Covid Shot: Not For The Faint of Heart. Literally.

2nd covid shot

Wednesday dawned with Spring sunshine washing across the prairie. It was going to be a great day to get my 2nd Covid shot (Moderna) and then go for a nice drive. I walked into the clinic and the lovely lady who gave me the shot was someone I knew. That was fun. Then they shunted me to the waiting room for 15 minutes to make sure I was still vertical when I left. Little did they know. The vax was no problem that day at all. Not even a lot of pain. Yet.

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Thursday morning I got up at my usual time, got my coffee and went to the computer to crank out an article. But something went wrong at about 7 a.m. Pacific time…my legs didn’t want to work, and my head started to pound. I became nauseated and decided to go back to bed for a while. Not restful at all. By noon, I couldn’t get out of bed, and though I tried, I fell on the bathroom floor and that’s where I stayed until my hubby called paramedics.

Now, mind you, I’ve never had paramedics in my house before, and I was embarassed that I hadn’t been able to spiff up the place before they got there. Kinda hard when you can’t even stand up and you start barfing every time you try. They kept telling me they’ve done this before lots of times, and not to worry. God bless First Responders. They’re awesome.

Am I having fun yet? Nope.

As the EMS guys took my vitals, (trust me, those blood pressure cuffs hurt BAD on the “jab zone”), they decided I was extremely dehydrated on top of the headache, nausea, and probably needed either some gatorade (I hate that crap) or go to the hospital for an IV and some pain medication and anti-nausea stuff. Because by then I hurt all over. BOTH arms hurt, my eyes and even my jaw hurt, my back hurt from laying on the floor, and I still couldn’t get up.

Then…I had to go to the bathroom. Totally humiliating. I couldn’t get my pants up or down. They helped me. Two grown men having to help me get my pants down and then back up. Ugh.

So I signed the screen with the I-am-refusing-transport-to-the-hospital, and my husband revved up the car. The paramedics carried me out to the car in a chair. My husband brought the dog back in the house, and we were “off to the races.”

We got to the hospital emergency room, they wheeled me in and immediately started that IV with nausea and pain meds. It took a few hours to get me back, but I have to tell you- if you’re thinking of getting that 2nd Covid shot, think twice. The first one was a piece of cake, no pain, nothing. But the 2nd…it could easily have gone a bad direction if my husband hadn’t called the paramedics.

Some people have actually died from that 2nd Covid shot. The nurse and doctors all said they’ve had many people with nasty sideffects. Our daughter, an infection diseases doctor, also had a bad reaction to it, as have other medical personnel. All in all, I’m grateful to be alive, headache and all.

And no, I’m not planning on getting another emergency vaccine anytime soon. The Moderna vaccine is supposed to be highly effective. Hope so, not doing that again.


Featured photo: Screenshot via Axios, original photo by Sarah Grillo
