This one’s about last Thursday when I went to Thornton Little Theatre for my third Covid jab. Jane of course took me, so we packed sandwiches and a flask in case we were there ages like we were with the first one. That session had very, very long queues and it was raining on top of that, not pleasant!
We approached the corner of the Theatre and had a crafty look to see if they were queueing to Blackpool. Jane remarked that there wasn’t a queue, much to our relief, so we parked and went in to a very quiet hall, so unusual. Apparently, the people who run the Covid clinics realised that it wasn’t much fun for us oldies to be outside in the rain, because they are doing the Pfizer jab this time. My first two were the Astra one which of course you can have and go.
However, with the Pfizer one you have to wait 15 minutes to make sure you don’t go on your back with your feet in the air. So their appointments are limited by the number of the chairs in the 15 min waiting room!
We waited in the other hall for 15 minutes in case I had a bad reaction to the jab. There was even a medical couch in the middle of the room with pillows and clean sheet in case any of us needed it. Jane asked if she could go and have a lie down while we waited!! Resuscitation things were there just in case. Which in one way was reassuring and in another enough to scare you to death! I am notorious in our family for having bad reactions to some things, such as tablets, I have to cut new ones in half and see if I go bang before I take the full dose. Of course I didn’t react to the jab so we left the rest of the people who still had to wait and trundled off home.
Of course I’m joking about going on your back with your feet in the air. I want to reassure people who are scared of needles, or scared of the vaccine itself not to worry. You go behind a screen to see the person who is jabbing you, with another person taking your details. They just ask about basic medical things such as do you take blood thinners. Derek does and he hasn’t had a problem yet.
Then the jabbing person gets you to take off your coat and it goes in, which barely takes a second. Mostly you don’t even feel it, sometimes you get a little scratch. But it only lasts for seconds – and that was me done. You get a sheet telling you what to expect, such as does my arm swell and am I going to get any side effects. The injection site might ache for a while and your arm can swell a bit. Sometimes you can get feelings of a cold. It is all there to refer to, which I read from back to front. Luckily, I was fine, as all our friends have been. My arm swelled a small amount as it does with the flu jab and the injection site was just a bit sore, but the good points far outweigh the bad for me.
Hubby had been having a dickey fit as he hadn’t even got an appointment up to then. He said he couldn’t get through when he rang the doctors, so it’s a good job he wasn’t very ill! I looked on line for him and gave him the NHS details to book one which for some reason he didn’t, why I’m not sure as he does book his own appointments for things like that. This saga went on for a week, worrying where his appointment was and why didn’t he get one when everyone else had. He can be such a worrier at times. It must be an age thing because when we were younger, nothing bothered him at all whereas I took everything to heart. I always wished I was like his nature instead of mine but he always said that it wouldn’t be me if I changed to being laid back. That made me wonder if he’d miss my worrying over everything. Now I’m more calm and accepting and he’s the one who worries.
Anyway, the post came last weekend and lo and behold, it was an invite to go for his jab and to make an appointment. He came into the room with a lovely big smile of relief waving his letter about while telling us he was going to get one done. I’ve kept telling him that he would get one at sometime being 78 years old and they wouldn’t forget him. But no, he’d made his mind up that was not the case. Then he had three tries at booking an appointment to fit around Jane and what she was doing, so he kept coming into the living room telling us he had made one. The trouble was it didn’t fit in to what was happening here so after another two tries, and as he was stuck to certain days and times from the NHS, he was in a bit of stuck in the middle. Anyway he made one and went yesterday.
All in all, it was a job done well as we say and thank goodness we can get such a thing to help prevent some of us from dying too early! And how amazing that all the ones of us who have had a jab are enabling everyone to live a more ‘normal’ life!
Other blogs you might be interested in:
- Time off and more troubles
- Lunch and hot chocolate
- What happened to the weather?
- Party time again
- Celebrating 30 years
- Being a bit more normal
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