To Be Vaccinated or Not

 

Last night deaths in Brazil due to COVID reached 600,000. This is not just a number. They are fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers, children, friends, the young and the old.

In 2020, every time I was delivered the news of someone that I knew departed, I would say a prayer for those family members who remained. However, when I reached a total of 50 deaths, I stopped counting. Some people had the audacity to say, “but they weren't closely related to you”. What difference does that make? - it's a life that was lost. Besides that, they were closely related to somebody.

Unfortunately, vaccination started too late here in Brazil. If the government had done what it should have done in the first months of COVID, perhaps the death toll wouldn't be so high. Mind you, as I am writing, this number has changed and is still changing and will continue changing. Some may say that this is a pessimistic point of view. I am a positive realist. I can see what is going on and I do not intend to close my eyes and create some fantasy that COVID has been eradicated.

The choice whether to be vaccinated is a personal decision, which I understand. I can also understand when people, because of their immune system or some kind of disease, are not allowed to be vaccinated. Nonetheless, there are people out there who do not realize this. By wearing a mask and keeping a distance from others you are not only protecting yourselves, but you are also protecting those who cannot be vaccinated.

Since I have a disease that has no ICD number, my doctors asked me to wait for more information to be published on the effects of the vaccines on people who have a neurological disorder. Therefore, I only got my doctors´ (yes in the plural) consents in July, a week before my birthday.

The consultation was not an easy one, but I gathered my strength and sat across from my doctor, who was speaking for the team, and asked him straight forward what the verdict was. I have been going to these doctors since 2010, so they pretty much know that my conversation is blunt and straight to the point. He looked at me and said that they had decided that I should get vaccinated because we were dealing with a death issue. He declared that if I were to catch COVID, I would die. But vaccinated and catching COVID, which is possible, I could stop walking again or lose my eyesight and with that they could deal with. He wasn’t speculating, he had read papers. He also mentioned that the people who were not vaccinated and caught COVID had serious neurological side effects, of course not everyone, but some.

As the words he was enunciating swam around in my brain, my mouth opened, and I blurted “Don't I get to choose?” He knew I was joking because I would never choose death over life. But come to think of it, not walking (been there done that) is not pleasant.

So, the very next day I woke up high-spirited and went to the nearest location where vaccines were being given here in my neighborhood. Oh yeah, I had asked him too which one I should or shouldn't take due to my condition. Of course, I'm the one that always says, “take the one they give you”. He said to take the one they gave me, but to live my life as if I hadn’t taken it. So, there I was in my car in the drive thru. The whole procedure took half an hour, and I was so relieved.

The vaccine that I took was AstraZeneca. I didn't even think about it. No side effects whatsoever. And the second dose would be in October , which happened yesterday. The procedure took 15 minutes because the location was distributing the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine. Luckily for me, the people in the long line wanted Pfizer.

Now I must wait 22 days talk to my doctors to see whether or not I can go back to work face to face. Scared I am because I have been in a bubble keeping my distance even from family and friends since March 2020 and going back to work face to face, I am exposing myself to the virus. Don't get me wrong, I do miss being around people, but if the number of infected people keeps rising it doesn't mean that we can live as if the vaccine were the cure. Several people are living this way, sadly.

You may be asking yourself how I'm feeling today - day 2. Well, my arm hurts a lot, my nose is running, my head is hurting, my body hurts all the time so it's not like that's going to give me a parameter to know whether it's the effect of the vaccine or not. I have been taking my temperature and so far, nothing, which I am grateful for.

I am totally pro vaccine, however, there are some that I am not allowed to take and though you may look at me and think that everything's OK behind my smile it is not.

Get vaccinated if you can, wear a mask, keep a distance, and wash your hands frequently.

Written: October 9, 2021

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