Muscling Through: My Shoulder One Week After My Second Vaccination

 

I thought my shoulder was getting better just because I could use a pepper grinder again, and even my cross trainer. It's not agonizing anymore, but it's painful. And look how high the shot was given--right into my shoulder.

Is my shoulder supposed to look this bad eight days after the vaccine?

The first time around, the very careful young doctor gripped some skin several centimeters lower and slid the needed in--I barely felt it. No, I didn't have the impression he squeezed the skin in such a way that the shot went into a layer of fat instead of my deltoid muscle--he seemed merely to be steadying the area for the shot.

The second time around the way the shot was given made me think of a skewer impaling some meat being prepared for barbecuing.

I'm no medical professional, but I have a hunch the second doctor wasn't all that careful. I keep telling myself that as long as he went through muscle before hitting what felt like bone, I'm probably more protected against corona virus, but I'm so ignorant of the musculature of the human body that I can't absolutely be sure. So hey, medical students--if you come across this blog, kindly let me know. In the vast array of German holistic and Chinese herbs and medicines, there's probably something out there for bruises. Not a steak, thanks. I can't see slapping something that's ministered to my shoulder into a frying pan, and I'm still too worried about Mad Cow to consume steak. 

Spring has come, I have seven more days until full immunity probably sets in, and I'm immensely relieved to have finally been given the shot. This is just an appeal to those who administer it to be a little more mindful of other people's arms and shoulders. 

Vaccination-Recovery Soup: An Easy, Aesthetically Pleasing Recipe

I expected my second BioNtech shot to be worse than the first--but the problem may have been the doctor who treated my shoulder like a dartboard. The first time around, a terrifically conscientious medical student, a young man with a concerned look and a professional manner, gently pinched the skin beneath the shoulder and slid in the needle. I felt almost nothing and experienced no side effects.

The second time around, a disheveled older man--gray hair looking as though someone had just rumpled it during foreplay, medical gown untied, face jolly and red (could he have been drunk?) thrust the needle into my shoulder, possibly hitting bone. Slap-happy friendly, he tossed the thing in a fashion I can only describe as unguided. It did go through muscle, and that's all that matters in the end.

Within the next hours, my arm started feeling as though it had been hit by a bowling ball. Hard. A strike. Using a pepper grinder proved agonizing. I woke up at night whenever my shoulder hit my pillow. 

In such situations, a soothing soup is most helpful. Dizzy with fatigue, shaking with body aches, I came up with the following, and it helped, gentle reader--it really did:

Ingredients (assemble beforehand)

Olive oil

A couple of onions--red or white

Red cabbage--at least one large globe

About a cup of dry red wine

A clove or two of garlic. You could add a little fresh ginger--I wish I had done so.

Vegetable broth

An apple or two, cored and cut into small pieces--you need not peel it. 

Put a tablespoon or two of olive oil into a large pot. Dice the onions and add to the sizzling olive oil; turn down heat and allow the onions to become transparent. Wash and slice the red cabbage into smallish pieces and add. Stir. Add the red wine and turn the heat up a bit. Slice the garlic, add it and stir. Add the apples. Add vegetable broth--about a cup, but it depends on how big the cabbage is. If you like a nice, thick soup, the cabbage mix should not be submerged in broth.

Let boil, turn down heat, and let cook on low heat until the ingredients are soft. Turn off heat. Using an electric wand, pulverize the ingredients. You may wish to add a little pepper. 

VOILA! Delicious--and soothing:

Plenty of vitamins, too!

 

 

 

 

How I Talked My Way into My Second Vaccination When I Didn't Have an Appointment

I wish I could say I huffed, I puffed, I blew their house down and then the doctor stuck the needle in my arm--but this is only a partial truth. Germany currently offers the second dose of BioNtech/Pfizer six weeks after the first, and the evidence currently suggests that it's best to get the second shot twenty-one days after the first--or as close to that as possible.

I got the first shot on March 31 after walking into a center, waving my doctor's letter and the official form she'd filled out. This time, I thought they'd throw me out since I didn't have the document establishing that I actually had an appointment--Germany loves documents--but I did have my doctor's second letter, which insisted that I needed the dose twenty-one days after the first, and provided a link to an article offering medical proof. I also had that fancy form, the one I'd brought the first time. 

This time, they were prepared for people like me. Instead of brooking a nervous clerk at a desk who discussed me with a colleague and then filled out another form, I was facing uniformed guards in highly polished shoes, bright yellow vests worn over their blue serge outfits. The message was clear: they were traffic cops and I was a runaway van.

I said I had a bad diagnosis. I said I had three kids, wanted to be around for them, was widowed, and here are my papers. "Auf die Seite!" they said--"Stand to the side," so I did, and finally another guard in a different vest appeared. They had a range of snazzy uniforms. I offered my tale, again, and the man rolled his eyes at the letter and at my complaints of "Querdenkers" (anti-maskers) at my kid's school. He didn't want to hear about that. A true German, he wanted a definite, particular, singular reason. He told me I would get the shot "auf Medicinischen Gründen"--that was respectable, my other reasons not, and I shut up. Was I getting regular chemo? Yes indeedy. That's sort of true. Let him picture substances related to biowarfare dripping into my veins and making me bald. He did not need to know that my current chemo is a gentle little violet pill. There are the unpleasant injections, but only once a month.

I didn't believe I was actually going to get the shot until I was in the little booth:

Sitting in front of the plastic barrier I allowed myself to relax. But time went by. Where was everybody? A nurse popped her head into the cabin and said they were waiting for the vaccine. Immediately I wondered if they'd run out, but they did come through and my arm is now, after my second dose, sincerely sore, as if it had been clonked with a baseball bat. I have no fever but feel tired and slightly achey. No cross trainer for me today! But folks, here's the vaccination hall:

See all the people?

More people! So crowded!

I arrived around 10:15 in the morning, and after my grueling begging and document-waving session with the guard was admitted and done by 11:01--I stuck around for half an hour just in case, as the doctor recommended. Above, you see the folks leaving with me. When I entered the gigantic hall, I counted around thirteen people waiting, some at desks filling out forms and some patiently waiting in chairs. Everybody in my town wants their vaccinations, and few have gotten them. 

Yesterday, I finally got an email response to my emails of March 3, including the forms I was waving around, and not counting the two phone calls I made between March 3 and the day I gave up on actually getting an appointment for my first shot and just walked in. The email said they could now offer me my first shot on April 24, and my second six weeks after!

I did write them back today and urge them to give the appointment to someone else. But if you really want your vaccinations, behave badly--as I did. The clerks are too busy filling out paperwork to arrange for vaccinations.

Boomer Covid Safety: The Three Things You Gotta Do

 (1) Above, the basic outfit, worn anywhere outside the house.  Naturally, you wash the face shield with dish soap and hot water when you come home, and toss the FFP2 mask or at least spray it with that mix of citric acid, water and dish soap you can find on the net and hang it up to dry. After it's dry, you only use it to take out the garbage or get your mail. For actual outings--to the grocery store, the post office--and on public transport, you're wearing a brand new FFP2 mask.

(2) The basic test, but do it at home, not where you find yourself in a very non-socially-distanced line with fifty other people, some of whom made appointments--and do the administrators here give the proverbial damn? Notice the single line on my test. Negative! Now, let me dance wildly (or at least use my cross-trainer) to the tune of Sting's Synchronicity:

 With one swab! 

Just one poke!

You will know

Negativity!

A sharp wince

A Q-tip hints

Will it evince

Negativity!! 

(3) The hardest part, but easier for Boomers: get your doctor to fill out a form. A letter's not enough. A filled-out form, like a uniform, commands a certain respect. Form in hand, proceed to the vaccination center, even if they won't give you an appointment. Trust me, they don't want to have to throw away that BioNtech they took out of the deep-freeze if people fail to show up for their appointments. And people do. The folks who follow Facebook instead of CDC recommendations . . .  oh, don't get me started. Curmudgeonhood is upon me. On the bright side, I'm negative.

A Rant: Teutonics in the Time of Covid (apologies to Edvard Grieg)

 

The Hall of the Mountainous Bureaucracy

 

Recycling is what the Germans do:

The paper’s gray to show it isn’t new

Throw green glass bottles here, not white glass too!

If basic sorting’s not your thing, they’re blue.

 

But filling forms out is their chiefest joy

Their second, stamping them in red or black

And saying no’s orgastic, don’t annoy

The thin-lipped, red-faced clerk or show you’re slack.

 

“Verboten!” or “Privat!” is what they grunt

Just fail to fill it out or estimate

A date, just show a failure to confront

Exactitude, and you will have to wait:

 

Oh, look up from that form and see the sun!

And turn to stone, bean-counters, one by one.