My COVID-19 Booster Vaccine Experience

I was supposed to get my third Covid vaccine on the 9th of October. I postponed it as I was feeling so unwell from an awful flare. This flare has been going on for the past month. It started with two weeks of intense fatigue and now, for the past two weeks, I have been in immense pain.

So, I canceled my appointment in the hope to get another soon. After two weeks I received a text. My next appointment date to get my third vaccine was the 22nd of October. I still felt awful, and I was still flaring but I decided to get it anyways. I wanted to be more protected against Covid-19 as I knew this would help me feel less anxious. I didn’t want to have to cancel again and wait even longer to get my booster shot.

It's vaccine time!

My appointment was at 11:45 on a Saturday morning. My boyfriend drove me up and we got breakfast and a coffee on the way.

I arrived five minutes early for my appointment. I went up to the desk and signed in. The man I was dealing with was lovely and he told me where to go. As I was walking through the building, a security guard stopped me. He asked me if I was ok. I said "Yes, it’s just through here, right?" He looked at me funny and said "Who are you accompanying? Where are they?" I explained to him that I was the person getting the vaccine and that I had signed in. He looked at me with a confused, judging face and just said "Oh" and walked away. This made me feel uncomfortable.

I walked into the waiting room. I was the only person under the age of 80 years old. I thought ok, I understand why he asked, but he works here, he must know that immunocompromised people are getting vaccinated now too.

Besides this, my appointment went very smoothly

It was so quiet compared to the last two times that I had gotten my vaccine. There was no queue, no time for me to get anxious, but I was anxious. Not about the injection itself, I am well used to injections at this point. But, I was afraid of being sick. I had awful side effects from the first two. I was feeling miserable anyways, I did not want to feel worse.  

I hoped that my body was now used to the vaccine. Hoping that because this time it wasn’t a completely foreign substance entering my body, I wouldn’t have a bad reaction to it, again. I told the nurse who was giving me my vaccine about how badly I reacted to the first two. She reassured me that it shouldn’t be as bad this time.

The nurse was right. That night my headache started, it only lasted a day or so and paracetamol helped. I was more tired for two to three days but that was all!

I feel very grateful for getting the vaccine. Although I am still very careful in relation to Covid-19, I feel less anxious. I know now for a fact that after three vaccines I have to have some sort of protection against the virus. I will continue to be cautious but at least I can be less anxious now.

Have you received your third dose of the vaccine?