Before I get into my own whys and wherefores, I just want to say that even though I disagree with those who refuse to get vaccinated against Covid-19, I still defend your right not to take the “jab.”
While I’m not over age 65, I am in my 60s, still somewhat overweight and I’m on daily medicine to control my blood pressure, so as soon as I became eligible to receive the vaccine, I took my chances and got my two doses of the Moderna vaccine in February and March of 2021. Eight months later (in November of 2021), I got the Moderna booster and will plan to continue to get boosted whenever the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) says I should or that it’s OK for me to do so.
Why? The primary reason I chose to do so, and why Jannah did as well (also having received her two original Moderna doses and her booster a little less than a month after I did), is because we love to go out to eat, to have a few drinks, go to sing karaoke, see concerts and attend Lightning and Bucs games and we believed that being vaccinated was a safer way for us to continue to do those things than choosing not to. While we wore our masks whenever we went shopping or to local Chamber, Rotary and other public meetings, we certainly didn’t wear them when we went out to eat or to watch the Bolts at Amalie Arena.
To those who say we’re crazy, that we don’t know what’s really in those shots or how they will affect us long term, for us — as older adults (although Jannah’s almost eight years younger than me) who aren’t concerned about how the vaccinations will affect our reproductive systems — the choice was easy for us and now, we’re both even happier that we made the decision we did.
After still basically doing all the things we love and never having tested positive for Covid in the nearly two years since the pandemic first hit (despite taking multiple rapid and PCR tests during that time)*, I first got a mild cough in mid-January, and I thought it might even just be a cold or allergies because I never ran a fever and never had body aches or major fatigue. And, although my cough did get a little worse, I still didn’t think I had Covid until my son called me a couple of days into my symptoms (and a week after we had all celebrated mine and my mom’s birthdays together) to say he had tested positive and that he was having a major sore throat issue.
The sore throat — which we heard was a major indicator that we had caught the Omicron variant — finally kicked in for me the following day and got so bad over the next two days that no matter how much hot tea with honey, zinc, vitamin C, Airborne, cough drops and other over-the-counter medications I took, it got so bad I couldn’t sleep for two nights. I actually went and had myself swabbed for strep at a local Urgent Care center, just to make sure I didn’t have two illnesses happening at the same time. But, I tested negative for strep and was told to increase my Ibuprofen doses and within a day or so after, the sore throat started to subside and while I was still coughing up phlegm, it no longer hurt to do so. Two days after that, I again tested negative for Covid.
Meanwhile, Jannah tested negative when I first tested positive but began experiencing entirely different symptoms than I had on the third or fourth day after my positive test. She started with a low-grade fever and body aches, which progressed into a minor cough with a minor sore throat a couple of days later, but all of her symptoms went away within a few days and, almost exactly a week after her positive test, she also tested negative for Covid.
Now, people tell me that Omicron, while apparently more contagious than previous variants, generally had less severe symptoms than Delta and other earlier forms of the disease, even for the unvaccinated. Even so, I could only imagine how much worse my symptoms could have gotten and that the possibility of being hospitalized, at least for me, seemed all too frighteningly real.
So, while I fully expect to receive the usual string of nasty emails and requests not to deliver the paper to those who are anti-vax and anti-mask, I still felt that I wanted to share my Covid story — not necessarily to change anyone’s mind, but just to say that knowing that people in my age, weight and general health categories are still dying from even the Omicron variant, I’m still glad that I weighed my options and felt that “taking the jabs” was less risky than just allowing my immune system to fight off this scourge.
And, considering that I’m getting ready to have both of my knees replaced over the next few months, I’m glad that, at least for now, I can worry a little less about Covid and more about my post-surgical recovery.
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