I haven’t published a blog post in a while because as many of you might already know I started college last September and well, lectures, assignments, homework 😳, et cetera. So I wanted my first post since finished college to be about something positive.
I know lots and lots and lots of people with diabetes are still waiting to be called for the COVID-19 vaccination but there are 220,000 people with diabetes alone in cohort 4/7 (FYI some regions are dividing us between the cohorts, some are not) so it is going to take a bit of time to get through all of us. Your turn will come! But do make sure that both your clinic and your gp have up to date contact details as most appointments are being offered via text message.
Since January 2021, I had been waiting patiently to be invited to receive my COVID-19 vaccination appointment, like many others living with diabetes in Ireland. I’d been following the news on vaccine approvals, supply and distribution closely and was so thrilled when the priority groups were published to include most, however not all, medically vulnerable people.
According to the terribly worded HSE document I was in group 7 as my diabetes was viewed to be well managed according to my HbA1c (#LanguageMatters people!), so I thought my wait was probably going to be much longer. I also felt that, regardless of my HbA1c that my personal situation of being able to stay away from people I don’t live with was easy. I’m not loving it but I’m just saying I didn’t have many, if any reasons to leave my house, my other half works from home and my teenagers were schooling at home and not meeting up with friends. So I viewed my risk factor of picking up Covid to be extremely low.
So when I got a text on the 21st March for my vaccination at a location a one hour drive away, which was also the day before I had a group presentation due, and knowing that the effects of the vaccine might make me really sick, and also feeling that there were so many other people who I needed it more than me, I texted back “I do want the vaccine but I can't attend this appointment on Tuesday”. I did so knowing there was no one I could contact to make sure this didn’t remove me from the list completely which was a bit of an anxious time.
I need to give a special mention to the diabetes online community on Facebook and Twitter who for over a decade (thank you Niamh Downes for creating this group in 2011) have guided me and who through this entire pandemic have been a HUGE source of information and support. It’s through the #IREDOC Irish Diabetes Online community that I found out that I would get called again and that my reaction to the vaccine could vary from mild to severe symptoms. I made the right choice deferring my appointment.
I listened to #IREDOC to stay up to date and there were lots of people getting their appointments and sharing how they fared afterwards - I really appreciated it.
Then! My second text invitation arrived on the 1st April for the next day - my diaversary - and this time only a 20 minute drive away, so I said YES!!! and also very thankful to have the weekend to recover.
I was actually really excited about this and really surprised I was so excited. But maybe it was also about being able to travel a little bit further than 5 kilometres for the first time since 31st December.
50% Vaxxed :-D
Vaccination Diary
Day 0 - 2nd April received my first dose of AstraZeneca
I didn’t sleep much the night before and had a Physio appointment beforehand where she told me to drink buckets of water beforehand and to take two paracetamol. So I felt tired all day from sleep deprivation but other than that fine. I got my first shot of AstraZeneca at about 11am.
Day 1 - 3rd April day 1 since vaccination
Restless sleep. Really sore arm. Mild headache but really, really tired and feel like my body is made of a heavy metal. I feel like I am living through the worlds worst hangover (not that I would know what that feels like, of course. My brain was not really cooperating with me at all and for safety reasons I was removed from operating ALL kitchen appliances due to the excessive grogginess. So, I basically took up residence on the couch for most of the day.
Day 2 - 4th April since vaccination
A little less groggy and a lot more functional. And from this day forward I was more or less back to normal.
Roll on shot number 2 :-)