So, the federal government has announced that AstraZeneca vaccine is now recommended only for those over 60.
And I am under 60. And had an AstraZeneca vaccination last Friday. And the extremely rare blood clots typically occur 4 to 30 days after vaccination.
How do I feel right now? Disproportionately anxious. Calm and accepting of both my decision to be vaccinated and of any outcomes.
The anxiety is caused partly by being just another person in the middle of a pandemic with all the history we have all had, although having got off more lightly than most. Partly caused by a personal history with hospitals and medications that have harmed people I love, where I noticed things the medical staff did not. Things that changed outcomes. Medicines later withdrawn from the market.
Back then, I was left hypervigilant for months afterward, disproportionately alert and feeling like if I let my guard down, if I stopped trying to make sure everything was OK, then I could not trust that there were systems in place to take up the gap I left.
How do I know this? Because I held a one-person workshop at 3am a couple of nights ago, trying to work through why I was awake instead of resting. I would not even be posting about this now, because it was kind of embarrassing to be awake like that – not worrying, not really ruminating, just awake … if it wasn’t that the safety advice about something I had just put into my body changed yesterday.
At my most dramatic yesterday, I was thinking of this period, for the next month, as though I have a timebomb inside me. Is there something happening in my body of which I am unaware, that I should be aware about? Should I be watching? Monitoring? What? If you have ever gestated a baby, one who you cannot really feel in those early weeks, then watched the squiggly little human inside you on the ultrasound, you will know how huge changes and activity can happen in your body while you are totally oblivious.
So, I have visceral pre-programmed anxiety about this that I really just need to ride through. I am not, however, going round the bend in any way. Yes, there is a background, physical and chemical flight-or-flight response happening. I am just watching and accepting that there is some monkey business that my brain wants to do, but I am generally in a calm place and very much OK with my decision to have been vaccinated.
Why?
Take just one minute to watch this, then come back.
Episode 2 of “Tick F***ing Tock” , at 49:00 to 50:38, broadcast on ABCTV 9 October 2018. https://iview.abc.net.au/video/DO1718H002S00
If you are geo-blocked, or want me to explain, it is a monologue by Tim Ferguson at the end of a two part documentary about touring a comedy show throughout Australia and to the Edinburgh Festival with Paul McDermott and Paul Livingston. Tim has Multiple Sclerosis, has been dealing with the symptoms since he was 19. The show is about disability, mortality and about confronting and reconciling it.
He points out that when the audience leaves, somebody who was in the room will be the first to die. He jokes that it will probably be him, but someone will be the second one. And this is reason enough to change your life, do what you always wanted to do, because the clock is running on all of us.
Any timebomb from vaccination is really no different than the mortality I have lived with since birth.
I will bet that all the other 50+ year olds who were recently vaccinated were not cowering or ruminating about whether they would be in a car accident on their way there. I wasn’t. I am not sitting in my front room trembling about whether I will be struck by lightning if I go outside. When I used to fly, I was aware of DVTs, and made sure I walked around the cabin. I eat carefully, but really am not too concerned about choking. All these things are far, far more likely than me having a fatal blood clot from last Friday’s vaccination.
But, what about the long term risks being unknown? Shouldn’t I worry that there is a timebomb sitting there that may impact in 5, 10 years?
COVID-19 changed all our lives. We’re not going back. Whatever happens in my body as a result of vaccination is just one of the consequences of a pandemic we are living through and adapting to. I don’t know the long-term outcomes of having COVID, or whether there will be new and different pandemics to face. If we keep our eye off the ball with climate change for too long, I DO know that a timebomb ticking under our noses will go off in our faces.
What I do know is that Long-Haul Covid exists. It impacts people for months afterward, disproportionately to the severity of the initial infection. My vaccination makes it less likely that other people will get that.
COVID mutates when it spreads quickly through a population. My vaccination makes it less likely that it will have a chance to do this. It buys time for science to work toward combating variants.
Yes, for the next month, every little sign of gas will be greeted with disproportionate terror “Oh my goodness, is THIS abdominal pain? Is it a blood clot symptom?”, but if you will excuse me, I have a very scary bowl of muesli that I am off to try to swallow without choking…