Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: flu shot

Day Three of the flu shot

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Day Three of flu shot. Well, two-and-a-half, really. I got it around four on Thursday and as I’m writing this, it’s one in the afternoon on Saturday. My teacher has Covid and had to cancel the class today. I was glad because I’m exhausted. My arm is a bit sore, buthere is barely a welt.

It’s the level of fatigue that only happens when I’m sick. I had to curtail my morning Taiji/Bagua routine because I don’t want to push it. It’s frustrating. I had just gotten back to doing everything and now, I have to pare it back again.

Today, I did all the stretching because I had a hunch that class would be canceled. And i did the Fan Form, the Eight Palms (Bagua) with DeerHorn Knives, bot only one way (usually do it both ways), and the Double Saber…I think? Suddenly, I’m not so sure. I did the Sword Hu-li Form (dancing sword form) which is just me moving the sword as I want to. With internal music going.

Now, I just want to sleep. I’m watching the Early Access Retry Elden Ring episode and have ordered Thai. This is my Saturday Ritual. Taiji class, Thai, and Retry. No Taiji class, but the other two still stand. It’s a meaty episode at nearly two-and-a-half hours.

I’ve been doing a run loosely based on Aunty Finchy’s run. I gotta say, it’s been so fucking hard. He’s a dex man, and I am…not. Neither dex nor a man. Plus, he spreads his points all over the place, much to the constertation of a lot of fans. A lot.

I peeked at the Facebook page last night, and, boy, do people have a lot of opinions on what Rory should and should not do. A. Lot. WHich is fine in the, well, everyone has opinions sort of way. But it gets pretty depressing when it’s RORY YOU HAVE TO DO THIS YOU STUPID IDIOT sort of way, which is so many of the comments.

The big ones are the insistence that he not use spirit summons on boss fights, which is silly and honestly just wrong. The boss fights are made to have spirit summons in them and while you can do the boss fights without them, it’s adding unnecessary difficulty.


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The body will do what it will do

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Day Two of the flu shot. And, yes, I am going to be doing areport on it, much as I did with the Covid booster. I’m very tired. My arm is sore, but not bad. And not a welt. I can’t stop holding my breath yet because it was the night of day two for the Covid booster when it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Last night, I was pretty tired and went to bed early. I woke up really tired. I did manage to do my whole Taiji/Bagua routine, but it was a struggle. And I just want to take a nap. Which would be ok except I had a solid eight hours last night.

It’s been a while since I had a flu shot. The reason why is because of how I react to these shots. And the fact that I never had the flu. I mentioned this in yesterday’s post.

I get why I need to get the shots, at least from a theoretical point of view. It’s like insurance. Except in this case, there’s no guarantee that it’ll be the right shot. That’s the reason I stopped getting the flu shot, by the way. It made me feel so shitty and then I never got the flu.

Yes, I know that’s the best outcome. I’m not disputing that not getting the flu is a good thing. It just seems like a waste plus it’s hard on my body–and to make matters worse, it’s not as if the vax prevents you from getting the flu (or Covid).

This was what I didn’t understand for years. I thought if you got the flu shot, you would be innoculated against getting the flu. No, it’s if you get one of the six strains that the shot was prepared for that year, you would suffer the effects much less (presumably). Same with the Covid vaccination. It mitigates the effects if you get one of the strains that it’s innoculating you for.

I feel really bad for my Taiji teacher because she was trying to get her booster, but could not get in. I can empathize because I was planning for my own booster shot. I could not get into my pharmacy until the first week of December. I wanted to get it a week before Thanksgiving. Cubs had a spot open in a few days from when I was planning it, but for the Moderna rather than the Pfizer.

I was going to get the booster on the Thursday before Thanksgiving. Then, the flu shot the Tuesady after. Then, my brother’s Thanksgiving feast Friday night. That WAS the plan, which failed miserably.

I think that’s one thing I’ve taken away from the experience. It’s ever-changing. I can’t rely on what happened the time before because it’s ever-changing–like the virus itself.

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Shots are my nemeses

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I got my Covid booster yesterday. I knew that I would have a bad reaction because I always do. When I got my first shot, I was still on Twitter. I tweeted about how terrible I felt for a week after, and how the welt lasted until my next shot which was three weeks later.

I had someone push back on me tweeting that. He said that it would discourage people from getting their shot. I said I would rather go in knowing I would reactt badly to it than thinking it was going to be fine and then be surprised. The reason why I tweeted that was because there were several big influencers who were pooh-poohing the side effects of the shot and implying that if you didn’t get it, you were a big old baby.

The guy I remember tweeting about it said how easy it was for him. In and out in fifteen minutes, and that was that. Which, good for you, dude. But not everyone is you. This was a liberal guy, but a white cis het dude. In other words, the default norm. He was not wrong about people needing to get the vax. I had no problem with him and other people saying that. Yes, urge people to get the Covid shot, but don’t call them babies at the same time.

I had a few people tweet at me in support. They agreed that they would want to be prepared for a negative reaction. One woman mentioned that like me, she always had a bad reaction to these kinds of shot–incnluding flu shots. I don’t usually get the flu shot because the times I do, I end up getting the flu. I know that’s not how that works, but I also know that they pick the six or so strains that they think are most likely to be prominent that year and vax against them.

My doctor at the time scolded me when I said that I did not get the flu shot. I said I had a bad reaction to it, and she said that it was better than dying from the flu. Which, I can’t argue with that, but it’s also hyperbole. What’s the chance of my getting the flu? Minimal. What’s the chance of me dying from it? Even more minimal.  It left a bad taste in my mouth in the same way another doctor told me that smoking two cigarettes a day was just as bad as smoking a pack a day.

Come on. You don’t need to be a doctor to see that this is just not true. I lost a lot of respect for that particular doctor. Had she said that it was still bad for me, I would haev accepted that. But that statement was utter shit.

The doctor I had many years before that was my favorite. She was frank and honest with me. She said smoking two cigarettes a day wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I asked why doctors didn’t say that more often and that frankly. She said because if doctors told patients that they could smoke two cigarettes a day, they would smoke a pack. That makes sense, but I wished there was a way for doctors to be more honest with their patients.


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Speaking my truth (no matter how weird)

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Talking about vaxxes, it often comes up that they are ‘not that bad’. Back when they were first rolled out, there was a concerted effort on the left to  exhort people into getting them. I have no problem with that. People should get vaxxed if they can. But, I didn’t like how they were saying it was no big deal and scoffing the notion that it might be anything other than a minor nuisance for people.

I have had three vaccination shots including one booster. The first one was on my birthday is 2021. It was horrible and I suffered greatly from it. I was expecting it to be terrible because I react badly to flu shots as well. In fact, I stopped getting the flu shot because of how horrible I reacted to it. My doctor snapped at me that it was better than being dead, which, true, but it still sucked.

When I got my first vaccination shot, my arm swelled up, was burning hot, and throbbed for weeks. I was exhausted, fatigued, and sore as well. Everything slowly dissipated on the daily, but my arm did not fully recover in time for the next shot. Seriously. When I went to get my second vax, I still had a bump from my first. Three weeks and a day later.

So. When I saw all the tweets making fun of people who were hesitant to get the vax, I spoke up. I tweeted my experience, emphasizing that it was worth it.

I got a response from someone who admonished me, saying we should encourage people to get their shots. He claimed that my tweet would deter people because I was very honest about the side effects I had experience f rom it–the first vax to be specific. One of my fave tweeters came to my defense, saying he would rather know the effects ahead of time so he could prepare for it. Others chimed in to agree, but I really had a moment of ‘was I wrong?’ when I received the initial scolding tweet.

Here’s the thing. I prefer to know the possible effects ahead of time. It makes it easier for me to prep myself for dealing with said effects. It’s not as if they would suddenly magically not happen if I hadn’t talked about them. And, yes, it may put off some people from getting the shot, but wouldn’t it be much worse if they went into it thinking it’d be a breeze and it knocked them on their ass? I was careful to emphasize that I was rare in my reactions and that I had a shitty immune system. I said that for most people, it would probably be ok. I just wanted people to be prepared in case they had a reaction like mine.


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