At Max Vax

I got my second dose of the Moderna vaccine today. I'm at max vax. I've been double dosed. I was going to get it on July 16th, but a couple weeks ago I was told that I'd been moved up. So today I got to join the 16.5% of Canadians, and 20% of Ontarians that have been fully vaccinated.

Lee-Anne also got her second dose of Pfizer today. She got her first vaccine a few days before I got mine, but I managed to beat her to the second, although only by three and a half hours.

On my way to the pop-up clinic, I saw a dead fox on the road. My spirit name, which I got in a shaking tent ceremony in Chisasibi, is Fox Man. So this sight gave me an ominous feeling.

I got into the clinic fine. This time around, they asked me to swap my reusable mask for a medical one. When I did my First Aid training, they also required a medical mask, but last time I got a COVID vaccine, they were fine with a reusable one. In their invitation, they asked me to bring a mask, but didn't specify it had to be medical. It was fine because they provided one.

Before I got my shot, the person administering it asked me a series of question. Pretty standard, except she included the question "Are you pregnant or breastfeeding?". For a moment, I wondered, "Is it because my mask is covering my beard?" before I remembered that I'm still a hulking 6'3", broad-shouldered individual with very obvious male-pattern baldness.

Last time, I complained that it was raining on the day I got my vaccine, and there was nowhere to wait indoors to see if you experienced immediate side effects. So I wound up huddled against a small overhang against the side of the building for the required fifteen minutes.  It was raining this time too! I was, however, relieved to see that this time around, there were a couple of rooms where you could wait inside. Maybe I somehow missed them the first time around. On the card they give you with instructions, they simply tell you to wait in your vehicle after you get your shot, and they let you know you have the option of getting your shot in your vehicle. There is nothing to indicate any accommodations for people who don't show up in one. The waiting room was also not marked in a highly visible way. This is a pop-up clinic specifically for people who work in, or receive services from, the developmental sector. I think it's kind of ignorant to make it so vehicle-reliant.

There still wasn't anyone monitoring the room. One thing that bothered me with the vehicle system the first time around, aside from the fact that it only works for people with vehicles, is that they instruct you to honk your horn if you feel like you're about to faint and someone will help you. But I've had multiple vaccinations where people have passed out in the waiting room, and no one has ever had the presence of mind to know in advance if they were going to pass out. If I passed out in this unmonitored waiting room, would it even be any better than passing out anywhere else?

There were instructions to sanitize your chair before leaving the room. I thought surface transmission was negligible, and health authorities were wondering why schools were still bothering with sanitization as a safety measure?

So now I just need to lay low for two weeks while the antibodies work their way through my system. I know four people who got their second dose recently that have felt like crap the next day, even though their first dose was fine. I'm happy I got mine on a Friday, because I've got the weekend to recover. 

I got ice cream sandwiches to reward myself for getting the shot. For some reason, people seem to associate ice cream as a reward for getting injections. It didn't seem like a bad idea, so I adopted it. I've got convenience foods and video games to help me live a low-maintenance life if I need to recover over the weekend.