Tuesday 13th April 2021
Today was the day of my first Covid vaccine and I can’t lie, I’m a little relieved.
I generally have an overactive immune system. It means, I rarely get ill. However, because it’s going at 150 miles per hour, my immune system can sometimes crash. When that happens I have zero energy and can come down ill pretty hard.
My last major downtime was about 18 months ago. I’d gone to Sweden to compete in the leading swordfighting competition (Jesus, that feels such a lifetime ago). I always suffer a bit after a tournament and my immune system takes a dip. I caught something over there, and despite having friends that work in Covid telling me otherwise, there’s a part of me that still thinks I caught Covid 3 months before it hit China.
It knocked me off my feet for a week. Even when I have flu, it only takes me out the game for a day or two. I once had a doctor tell me this was impossible and that I’d never had proper flu. Turned out the thing I’d gone to see her about turned out to be glandular fever, which I got over in 3 weeks. But this post Sweden illness, had me coughing, bed-ridden for a week. I was rough.
So with Covid, my concerns have really been catching it when my immune system is on a down. Hence, whilst I’m probably better equipped to cope than a lot of people, I’ve had to treat myself as if I was at risk in case I’m on an immune system low. Still, it never hurts to be ultra careful and wash your hands extra times, just in case.
As a result, I’ve done nothing in the past year. Sure, I’ve written a bunch and played a load of Warcraft, but in terms of going places and doing things, even when lockdown lifted in September, I stayed home. The biggest days out I’ve had (and probably the only) are when I went to Uffington in August for a day out and when I walked across town after getting rid of my car (it was hardly being used during the pandemic).
My vaccination centre was the other side of town. This would normally be an easy walk, but because I’ve done so little over the winter, it was a bit of a marathon. I need to get out and walk more, and it was a sunny day, so it made sense.
I did have to take a break half way though. This has reminded me just how unfit I’ve become in the year off. I really need to start building back up but to be honest, the mountain before me is a little depressive. But hey, I walked today. I remember from when I blew up my leg how bad a position I was in then.
Because I’d anticipated that my walk was going to be a bit of a slog, I left super-early and allowed myself plenty of time. So when I needed to stop because my lower back was aching, I had time to sit down and do so. I did a bit of Pokemon Go although not while I was walking as that can strain my neck constantly looking down at my phone as I play.
I apparently timed my vaccine just right as when I went up to queue, the steward remarked how there had been a massive queue before. Took about 10 minutes to get in and done and then I was off back home.
I’ve had people tell me that I’m likely to get symptoms. I’m not sure how much of this is true but they are usually a sign of your immune system fighting and then absorbing the vaccine. So with an overactive immune system, I’m expecting mine to fight hard.
Not that I’m worried. After a year of being stuck indoors, this feels like the beginning of the end. Things can be as rough as they like if it means I can start getting out again.
The first of those symptoms came as I was readying for bed. Exactly 12 hours after my jab I started shivering uncontrollably. I also started to feel as if I was going to throw up. The nausea lasted only a couple of minutes, but it took me 30 minutes to stop shivering.
Some exciting writing things happened today but I’m going to leave them until I’ve got over any side-effects. Hopefully, tomorrow won’t be too bad, but either way, I’m looking forward to the end of this pandemic.
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