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Sunday Morning (9)
In earlier posts on one of these forums (search for <farmer>) I told the story of the old farmer who’s only horse ran away and what happened next. He reacted to all of the subsequent events, perceived by his neighbors as good or bad, with equanimity. He truly knew that everything happened for a reason and he never judged his fate.
Regarding the covid shot something like this is happening to us lately.
In the beginning there was no covid, but we didn’t know of this and no one thought about it. Then covid appeared and there was panic because there were no vaccines and the world thought this was bad. We didn’t know what was good or bad about the situation, adopted a more cautious lifestyle and hoped for the best – this worked out fine.Suddenly, vaccines appeared. The world thought this was great, and everyone was running after them frantically. We were interested and watched the situation. A vaccine seemed a solution, but was it really? No one knew.
Slowly, it became more clear how and when our vaccination was due and with which vaccine. CF was not deemed to be a high-risk disease regarding covid in our country (strange?), so I was not eligible for an early or special shot. I consider the mRNA vaccines as special, since they seem to work much better than the other kinds – and they don’t use an rhinovirus as vector. Are they really better? I have no idea. No one does.
Furthermore, vaccination started in order of age, the elderly first. Build in 1963, we are still very young 😊 so we had to wait for a while. That was fine with us. In March, our personal physician offered us a vaccine earlier than we were due, but we thought other people might have more urgency to get out of isolation than we, so we declined. A month later this vaccine was deemed unsuitable for our age group due to thrombosis risks.
Some other vaccines were deemed safe at first, than unsafe, then safe except for some groups. They started using them, then stopped, then started again. People’s trust in them went up and down accordingly. Other vaccines were promised but not delivered, or delivered later, or in lower quantities. Vaccination rate and planning went up and down and sideways accordingly. The chaos continued, and we were still watching and waiting, being true to our cautious lifestyle.Surprisingly, last week my cf center informed me that they created an opportunity for all of their adult patients to get a covid shot with Moderna in a safe and small, controlled setting that would respect both the covid and the cf precautions. Wow. This seemed like an adequate opportunity to get vaccinated, so I agreed to partake. My family congratulated me for this unexpected windfall. I was mostly surprised about it.
However, a few days later it turned out that the shot would be given at a location in the hospital so far away (1200 ft) from the car parking, that it was impossible for me to reach since I can only walk for 30 ft with an ffp2 (N95) mask and sit for 5 minutes without getting out of breath (with only 25% FEV1 there is not much to spare). Not so wow. Sitting in observation for the required 15 minutes after the shot as is mandatory, for me is only possible without mask, which is only safe outside or in a room with good access to fresh air (open window), not in a badly airconditioned little room buried in the crevice’s of the hospital building with no windows to open. They thought it would be safe enough for me to not wear a mask for that time, but I didn’t agree with that. And besides that, I couldn’t get to the room in the first place, remember? So the possibility was not for me. My family bemoaned my situation, but I felt mostly surprise after this unexpected change and a bit annoyed about the inflexibility of my cf team to find a suitable location for me.
Yesterday an invitation for a covid shot entered my (physical) mailbox – from the Ministry of Health. This was a bit unexpected (hey, what’s this!), because age-wise we are not due yet. Perhaps the invitation was because we are also eligible for a flu shot every year, and this group has (suddenly) gotten some priority lately. But the invitation did not mention this. It just told me it was my turn to make an appointment and they provided a website to do this digitally. Once on the website, it turned out that this was only for those of earlier years of birth than me, so I couldn’t enter my request (jeez!). Debbie (same year, also flu shot group) should have had such an invitation as well, but there was no letter for her. Not that this is important, because she wouldn’t have been able to use the website either.
So now I am very curious how this will turn out for the best for us, because I am convinced that it will. Perhaps we will get another surprise opportunity for a good vaccine. Perhaps it will work, perhaps it won’t. Perhaps we will never get a good shot at a good shot. Perhaps we will get sick, perhaps not. Perhaps this is bad, perhaps not.
Perhaps … ah well, we will see. The universe moves in mysterious ways. But whatever happens, it will just be that: just what is happening, not bad, not good. And we are that too. We eat, we drink, we sleep, we play, we love and take care of ourselves and eachother – until we die. So far, we are doing fine.
The most important thing is to have peace of mind with all of this and keep the big picture in sight. Everything has already been taken care of. We have no clue and no control. How fascinating!
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