Moderna : #2–Day 2

I honestly felt fine the day after I got the first covid vaccine… I did yoga the day after (45 minutes as a matter of fact), yeah my arm was a little sore but I powered through it…I had a mild fever a couple days after but I felt fine… so I figured when it came around to the second shot I’d do okay also..

 

Yeah.. about that.

 

I went to the VA for my second round on Tuesday… first off I swear to you the needle was bigger the second time around.. and I’m not squeamish about needles… and my arms are not that big… they used to be… but I’ve damn near shaved off 100 lbs since January 2020… and that night my arm hurt like a bitch… I thought okay by morning my arm will probably feel better and I can get back to my routine.. yeah… uh uh.

I wasn’t happy about it either… I like routines…. I’m a disabled veteran with PTSD, depression and anxiety… and on top of that my neighbor is bat shit crazy and has one security camera now angled so it picks up part of my front yard and then on top of that she put up on so it sees through my fence into the backyard…. so anxiety level raises (read the previous two entries for the crazy)…

On top of the extreme pain my arm felt both the day of and yesterday… I’ve been running a mild fever… low grade mostly… and just feeling like eh… malaise, tired and run down… except for last night my temperature went up a bit apparently… my husband took it because I kept getting up in my sleep and walking the house… he found me asleep on the couch in the living room sitting up, I got my water bottle out of the freezer and whacked it on the counter apparently to break up the ice in it… I think my temperature was 101…. he got out Tylenol and asked me to take it but apparently I refused to… (I remember none of this).  I also set up the essential oil diffuser and got it running at 5:40 this morning…. I barely remember that.

 

My arm did feel better enough this morning to do a yoga exercise that didn’t require too much weight on my arm but not well enough to do a strength exercise this afternoon… no way am I try to do any weight lifting today… when my husband got up he checked my temp and it was 99.5.  I finally took that Tylenol (I take Celebrex every morning for my arthritis… yes I’m 41 and I have severe osteoarthritis in my right knee and moderate in my left, it’s part of why I took up weight watchers to begin with, I have zero cartilage around my right kneecap… so no Motrin for me).  I’m feeling warm right now actually but I don’t really feel like getting up and going to check my temperature and I can’t remember when I took Tylenol last…..

 

That’s the other oddity… I already have memory issues.. but my brain has been more scattered than ‘normal’… and I’ve had more headaches than normal.  Last night my husband suggested ordering from Dominos (I order from there because they are the only pizza place that has salads on the menu… pizza is not a good WW option and I have a low points salad dressing made by healthy choice at the house).  I’m feeling okay enough to cook tonight.  I’ve been flushed… a lot… and it’s not just cause it’s hot out… and then I’ve also been getting chills..which is mondo weird.

 

I’m not quite sure how long this is going to last.. my arm still hurts which I think I already wrote but not as bad as the first 48 hours.  Initially I couldn’t even lift my arm it hurt so bad.. now it just kinda burns….My eyes have that hot feeling in them that I don’t know if you get when you have a mild to moderate fever but I do.  I’ve been super grouchy…. part of it is an interruption in my routine and the other part is just not feeling well and I’m not one to take naps even if I feel worn the hell down.  It’s a thing drilled in my head by my dysfunctional mother that “Moms aren’t allowed to take a break”…. except my children are pretty well grown… my estranged daughter is a mother and 21 and my son is 17 and isn’t even in the house right now he’s out riding his bike and hanging out with his friends…. since school is out for the day.

 

*He had a weird day… some kid at school reported him to campus security as a stranger on campus, the school admin knows him well for good reasons not bad and so it didn’t turn out bad but he came home and was like still bewildered by it…. I mean yeah the kid has grown a ton since last year and he just returned to school for in person learning but Jesus Christ…. he is a student there*

 

Back to the after effects… my sweet fur babies won’t leave me be… my dog hasn’t left my side… and my cats at night just wanna love on me… especially Freya…. she curled up next to me last night and loafed on me…. bless her heart.  She wouldn’t have done that a few years ago, she was so aloof… now she wants her love every night…. but the last couple of days she has been all about me, even bumping my nose it’s been so precious.

I feel kinda flushed right now… my cheeks feel like they are on fire…. and my head is hurting, not like a migraine hurting an all over hurt…. I feel tired but I do not want to go lie down… I hate doing that…. yeah I know it’s okay to rest if you feel tired and it’s usually your body’s way of telling you that you need to by between the words pounded in my head growing up and my hypervigilence … it’s really hard to just do that.

 

And between us I’m paranoid my neighbor is going to come over and start stuff since we had to water our lawn again yesterday…. I’ve been waiting on with great anxiety since we set up the sprinkler for her to come over and start a hissy fit… my husband even filmed each time he set up the sprinkler to prove it wasn’t going over the fence…. at every spot he set it at…. just to cover our asses.  And there is absolutely nothing we can do about the cameras cause they are not pointing into our home, they are on ‘her’–I use the term loosely she is a renter, property and angled just right … to see through the property line…

 

I guess it is Tylenol time… my husband just handed me two… said my forehead looked so red and my face so flushed he isn’t going to bother taking my temperature….. I basically look like hammered shit.

 

It’s really hard to look fabulous after the second round of Moderna.  My eyes are hot and tired…. my head hurts…. this better be fucking worth it…. what worries me is the variants… in my state (NC)… my county and the county adjacent (Brunswick and New Hanover) are some of the highest vaccinated counties in the state…. BUT…. we are beach zones (I can’t think of the right word)… so … tourists.  Last year at peak pandemic… the beaches were crowded… my husband, son and I didn’t even bother going to the beach all summer because of that reason…. can you imagine living near the beach in the summer and not going because of Covid … just driving by …. seeing the beach packed with people not wearing masks, not social distancing … and seeing numbers going up.

 

On top of that my MIL got Covid in a nursing home during the pandemic…. her immune system is compromised…. but she did survive it… we waited on baited breath too… but she got through it.  She survived.. some people in her same nursing home did not survive (she was unaware of that)… a second round went through and she didn’t get it that time around… I do not believe she has gotten vaccinated.  I’m not sure why.

We need to get my son vaccinated… my husband gets his second Moderna in a few weeks.  I don’t know how he will respond.  I have POTS so …. my body reacts differently and I was already having a bad week before I got the vaccine…. so I’ve been just shooting back water like shots of Tequila (except I don’t drink alcohol)…. I put flavor into the water…I have one that has stevia but also herbal additives in it that help calm you… believe me you I need it…. the bitch next door is seriously amping my anxiety if I haven’t mentioned it already…

 

Let me put it this way, it’s like living next door to a combination of my mother and my daughter…. and it is freaking me the fuck out.  The only reason I went off on her was she was getting in my husband’s face and asking him to hit her.  You don’t threaten or come at my family…come at me all you want to and I’ll sit there and take it… but do not come at my family.

 

Hopefully I’m feeling better tomorrow and I can get back to my routine…. I think if I can get back to my routine…. my mind will stop turning and turning and turning on my anxiety.  I have the option to take my clonazepam twice a day but I’m trying to keep from having to go to the VA for a refill anytime soon since mental health hasn’t bother to check in on me since the pandemic started.  I’m a little miffed at them.

 

So that’s how it’s going my mind is all over the place… my brain is a little scrambled… maybe it’s the fever… the tiredness… the general ickiness and all the rest lumped into one.

 

I’ll try to remember to check in tomorrow.

 

Peace Out Folks.