I’m getting my COVID vaccine today!

Today is the day! About a week ago I got an email letting me know that I could be vaccinated. While I’m a researcher in a hospital, my work involves a high risk population (people with spinal cord injury) so I’m front facing with patients on a regular basis. I’m also disabled which may have factored into my group placement. Whatever the case, I got a spot in line and now it’s my turn. My Co-PI who’s lab I work out of already got his, but he was in a higher group than I was. As usual I have some thoughts on all this…

On one hand I’m thankful that I have this chance to get vaccinated. On the other hand, I feel like I didn’t do a whole lot to get added to the list of early vaccinations. So I’m torn because I want to get vaccinated to prevent getting sick and more importantly to prevent me from getting others sick. If any of the participants in our studies got sick the result could be catastrophic for them. Which is why I’m getting my vaccine.

We already had two separate close calls since the pandemic hit. The first involves a person we were going to do an experiment with. Her roommate apparently tested positive for COVID that morning so she called and canceled. I had been up since 4am so it was a little frustrating that she waited so long to cancel, but in the end it was a good thing since none of us wants to get sick. Two of us, myself and the person who handles admin duties in the lab, are both higher risk for complications from COVID, so we’re trying our best to shield ourselves from, well everyone.

The second case I thought for sure got us all sick. We had an interview with someone for a postdoc position and so we spent a long time in close contact with the person and had meals with them. They tested negative when they arrived, but between leaving and getting back to where he was from he tested positive. While he had several days of visiting colleagues in the area, we couldn’t be sure when he contracted it and if he spread it to any of us so one by one we all got tested and retested. Everything came back negative, but was a good reminder that we all should be careful because as the infected numbers get higher the chances we’re coming into contact with someone infected increases.

The lab has already had our fair share of tragedies caused by COVID, a friend lost an Aunt, another lost both grandparents. It’s been hard and while the vaccine rollout takes time I’m happy to do my part and get vaccinated. That’s why I’m sharing this with everyone, I know there is some hesitancy with the vaccine, but vaccine science is some of the most studied and safest medicine we have. We all need to do our part and get vaccinated as soon as we possibly can. So today I’m getting vaccinated, I don’t think I deserve it, but I’m doing it because it’s our job to keep the spread to a minimum and this will help me do that.

I’m getting my COVID vaccine today, but I will continue to wear my mask and avoid crowds, and do everything I can to help set a good example. This is far from over, but at least we’re finally on our way to an end. Americans are stubborn and that killed a whole hell of a lot of people that didn’t need to die. We did that. Maybe this time we can come together and get vaccinated so that we can finally end this and maybe not return to normal, because I don’t think we can go back, but hopefully we can be slightly less afraid or at least less callus to the rapidly increasing death toll.