Membership has its privileges

As a member of the immunosuppressed community, I recently became eligible for a third “booster” shot of the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine. So I called my local pharmacy this morning to confirm they were accepting walk-ins and off I went.

I am now also a member of the Booster Club.

I’m very grateful to have access to this third shot. While it won’t absolve me of all the other precautions (masks, sanitization, proper distancing, limited contact with others) it does give me some comfort that I’ve utilized every tool available to me to protect myself and others.

Speaking of tools, I used my dehydrator setting on my Ninja Foodi today for the first time. I dehydrated apples plucked from my own backyard apple tree. I think they came out great.

These tasted great!

Happy Sunday, all.

15 thoughts on “Membership has its privileges

  1. Good for you! Considering what’s at stake one can never be TOO careful on this. As if catching the dreaded ‘C’ [another ‘C’!] isn’t scary enough, getting a case of the LONG Covid sounds truly horrific, going on for months, possibly even years. Unless there’s a darned good reason, who but a fool would refuse the chance of a vacc.?

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  2. I do not understand how these boosters work. Did you get the same vaccine for all three? Why would we expect this works better than just two shots? I have seen some evidence that mixing vaccines (eg AstraZeneca + mRNA) helps because the different vaccines train the body to respond to different aspects of the virus. I was not aware that three doses of mRNA would give much benefit over two.

    Nonetheless, I hope the side effects are not too intense, and that this third booster keeps you safe.

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    • I had to get the same for all 3. Immunosuppressed folk don’t enjoy the same level of protection from the first 2 vaccs as healthy folk do. This third dose for us is to increase our level of protection, bringing it closer to the levels healthy folk enjoy at 2. However, it is still being determined if all healthy folk should get/need/would benefit from a 3rd shot and, if so, if it’s better to stay with the same vacc or mix it up.

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  3. Congratulations on getting the booster and for being motivated to “get the job done”.
    I am so intrigued by your Ninja Foodi….What doesn’t it do?
    Enjoy

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  4. So glad you were able to get your booster so easily!

    Side effects from the vaccines seem to be so varied from person to person. I may have had some unpleasantness from my 2nd Pfizer shot (I got it during an incredibly stressful period of my life, and my body reacts to stress via my GI system, so I am loathe to lay my symptoms at the feet of the vaccine completely).

    Nothing that didn’t resolve pretty quickly, and of course greatly trumps getting COVID-19, but I’m wondering if when I get my booster if it will happen again. NBD, except this time I’d like to plan for a couple of days free afterwards in case it does happen. And might pre-medicate for GI symptoms just in case, depending on what my doc tells me is best.

    Did you have any side effects from your 2nd jab, and if so, would you mind letting us know if you do again from your booster?

    If it’s too personal, I certainly understand. Fingers crossed that you’ll be side effect FREE. Goodness knows you’ve been through enough health issues for the lifetimes of several people.

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      • Good! Fingers, toes, and eyes crossed for you that your streak of no side effects aside from the sore shoulder continues!

        Sounds like you’re like my partner and my father, altho they both got Moderna. Their only complaints were the sore arms, and only after the second jab. My partner said after the second jab it was like when he got a pneumonia vaccine shot, and having had one of those myself, I could relate.

        My mother had very similar GI effects as I did, altho hers happened much faster than mine (not even 24 hrs, I think) and didn’t last as long (perhaps 2 days total). Also, she had a headache for a several days. I think we both may also have had sore arms, but that was nothing compared to the nausea and vomiting, and certainly not my “take away” side effect LOL.

        Like my father, she received the Moderna “flavor”. Their description of the vaccination experience was interesting to me, because where they live the vaccinations were done using the drive-thru model (they never even got out of the car; they put down the driver and passenger windows, and when the time came both got jabbed almost at the same time), whereas I had to stand in a (thankfully fast-moving, efficient, masked, and socially distanced) line for both jabs.

        Side note: including my partner, who I was able to get vaxxed quite early for our area and his age (people weren’t taking the available appointments; the sheer willful stupidity continues to astound me, even tho I should know better), out of the four of us, three ended up with what I would consider major errors on our cards: they used the return date for the date my partner got his first jab, they didn’t even put a NAME or birthdate or any other identifier on my card, and they didn’t put his birthdate on my father’s card. I work in health care. Those are big mistakes. And yet for my partner and me, I didn’t even notice until we were home LOL.

        I wasn’t particularly surprised that my mother had GI effects. Her side of the family is where my brother and I get our own issues (I had ended up vaxxed before them due to my job). And she may have been stressed on my behalf because she knew what I was going thru at the time, and after all, she’s my mother.

        Her side effects were bothersome enough for her (the pounding headache much more than the N/V) that she’s not looking forward to a booster, but she has until December to ponder, and who knows what they’ll be recommending by then. I will nag her to get it if I have to, lol. If being able to see my niblings/her grandchildren is a condition my brother sets, she’ll be first in line.

        I honestly was expecting any vaccine to end up being similar to the flu vaccine (annual), because I expected the coronavirus to become endemic and/or continue with mutations. I was, however, hoping for protection to last a bit longer than 8 months, but the important thing is the protection, so I’ll certainly be in line for my own booster when the time comes, and any after that.

        P.S. If you’ll allow me a moment to vent:

        Smallpox is considered the only human disease that has been eradicated in the “wild” (both the US and supposedly only Russia still have viable samples of the virus, which I try not to think about). By the time the WHO became capable of eradicating smallpox, it certainly wasn’t a problematic disease in the US.

        Yet most people lined up to get the vaccine in order to eliminate a possible reservoir for the disease to hide in when they were asked to do so because smallpox was such a scourge to contract at any age, leaving its victims terribly scarred at the very least provided they even survived. People of a certain age (from what you’ve written, your mother could be one) often have a constant reminder in the form of a mostly circular scar-like area on one of their upper arms. That scar is what ONE “pox” left behind as part of the vaccination process. Imagine being covered as a child. Shudder.

        That obviously wouldn’t be possible today, which is why I wrote earlier that I should know better. I do, but it still makes me sad.

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