Please enjoy the view of my terror filled ride from the suburbs to NYC in an icy snowstorm so I wouldn’t miss my Covid vaccine appointment. Though I trusted that my calm cool collected boyfriend Dave had perfected his snow driving skills in Montana back when, my adrenaline was shooting through the roof on the white knuckle drive there and back. Having to decide whether to risk my life to get a shot to save my life felt like a segment on a sadistic game show.
My vaccine appointment was in NYC. Not around the corner from where I live, but at least not somewhere near the Canadian border. However, Mother Nature, that riot of a broad, predicted and threw in a major snowstorm same day, same time, same bat channel. Everybody who knows me knows I’m neurotic about anybody being on the road in bad weather. Just ask my now married daughter who still gets texts from ‘Debbie Dopplar’ with frantic weather warnings.
Teetering on the decision to go or not to go, I took a friendly inner circle text survey. Should I cancel? NOOOO! Just get there they all said while sitting home in their feetie pajamas. My nerves! But I had to agree especially after all the insanity I’d gone through the get the darn appointment.
For those who don’t know, trying to get a Covid vaccine appointment in NY even if you do qualify, feels a little like you’re workin’ an anxious drug deal on a TV cop show. It is in fact a drug deal, because you’re trying to get your hands on a drug that you want, that only some people have depending on the day, that everybody else is trying to get too.
Thankfully the vaccine supply pipeline will start to open up quicker in the U.S. and more and more people will become eligible but until then…here’s a little behind the scenes snapshot of what happens trying to book a vaccine appointment.
You make a call, you follow the phone prompts, you’re on the phone forever, no human answers, you find out at some point there are no appointments available. You hang up in disgust. You make another call, you get a human, you feel hopeful after they ask your zip code and they say “Ok let me look for you”. They finally tell you there are no appointments available. You hang up in disgust. You repeatedly dial the same number at 15 minute intervals, hoping to get different humans who’ve ‘refreshed’ their website. These humans are also really nice but tell you there are no appointments available. You break out the scotch. This goes on and on until you run out of scotch.
Simultaneously and in between phone calls, you go on a website that asks you too many questions but gets you excited showing you all the possible vaccine locations you qualify for. One by one you try them but there are no appointments. You refresh. Nada. You lose all your information each time you try a new location and have to start over multiple times. You switch to bourbon. You try contacting ‘other’ locations where you’ve heard there’s been a drop. You download apps and register for drugstores you’ve never heard of so you have back up. You even get ‘an inside tip’ on a location where there are ‘extra doses’ somewhere on the corner of whatever and whatever in the Bronx. Seriously.
Gratefully I finally scored a vaccine appointment at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC where I’ve been treated for ‘my underlying’ condition’, the very same day that the condition my condition is in became ‘qualified’. Getting the appointment felt a little like getting accepted at my first college choice. Since I occasionally have allergic reactions to drugs, I was relieved knowing that if I did go into anaphylactic shock, it wouldn’t be on a corner in the Bronx. At least I’d be in the hands of people who’ve managed to keep me alive before!
The vaccine shot was nuthin. Quick and easy. See how calm I am here? However I after reading about all the ‘potential’ side affects I was SOOO wound up worried that I’d have an allergic reaction, that I did in fact have some kind of reaction, I think, who knows. Bless those sweet patient nurses who gave me such TLC. They brought me water, watched over me and talked me through what was probably a panic attack for an hour. Remind me to send them cookies.
To try and distract myself and stay calm during my panic attack, I pulled up solitaire on my phone and soon as I did a random ad popped up. I took it as a ‘sign’. It said, “This Too Shall Pass’. Here’s the screenshot. It did pass.
Anyway I got the Pfizer vaccine. When I got back home I noticed a small black and blue popped up on my arm a few inches down from where the needle went in and I had slight soreness for a day. That was it. Really minor. I’m scheduled for the second shot in a couple weeks which I’ve heard makes some people feel like they have the flu. I should probably start my pre-panic attack round two baking for the nurses now. I’ll keep you posted. After that second vaccine dose kicks in, I plan on celebrating. No idea what that means but I’m feeling some kind of ‘fringe’ outfit for when it does. “I am not your mothers’ Grandma”, so whatever happens after all this depressing pandemic isolated time pre-vaccine … it won’t be dull!
Meanwhile rooting hard for all of you still trying to get a Covid vaccine appointment that you have success.Till we can all party hearty together again…
Onward,
Debbie
