However, due to how intensely this vaccine activates the immune system, there are some side effects you should prepare yourself for. You’ll get a sheet with all the “duh” ones from the CDC - muscle aches, chills, etc. But I’m here to tell you what the CDC won’t. And given my complete lack of medical expertise, you absolutely should put blind faith in what I have to say.
So beyond a little pain at the injection site, I don’t typically have any reactions to vaccines. I get my flu shot every year and am fine. That’s how I felt after my first COVID shot. I heard some rumblings that the second one could pack a punch, and well, they weren’t wrong. I’m a healthy person with a pretty darn good immune system, if I do say so myself. Maybe that’s why these things happened. It’s TOO awesome and went at the fake coronavirus protein like an army of rabid honey badgers. (Full and rather hilarious explanation from an actual doctor on how the vaccines work is here.) Everyone's body is different, and I know people who had the same/different/hardly any symptoms.
Do I really need this arm?
I got my second dose about 10:45 a.m. on a Friday. (If you can schedule it on a Friday - do it!) By about 7 p.m, I wanted to rip my left arm off and reattach it when it felt better. A flu shot’s got nothing on a COVID shot with arm pain. Like imagine if you peeled your skin back and bathed your muscles in acid for hours. Fortunately, ibuprofen mostly knocked that out.
The usual
I awoke about 1:30 a.m. that night with the typical chills and muscle aches, like the CDC sheet had warned me. I didn’t have a fever. I couldn’t fall back to sleep until about 3:30 a.m., but that’s probably because of my husband’s freight train snoring. Tylenol helped. Not the snoring, just my aches and chills.
Was I in a car accident I don’t remember?
My husband and I take turns getting up with the kids on weekends, and Saturday morning was my turn. I should have rethought that. But I awoke without the chills and much reduced arm pain, so I thought I could handle it. My daughter is 4 and very potty trained but still needs help getting up on the toilet, and she did when she woke up. I reached down to lift her up, per usual, and then I screamed in pain, dropping her unceremoniously onto the crapper. What happened to my back? Did I get roofied, placed in a vehicle and then driven into a wall at 50 mph overnight? I made my husband get out of bed and get her off the toilet. If I had to help her wipe, I may have died. Muscle soreness continued throughout the day, and I remained on a steady diet of ibuprofen and heat pads.
Super Hero Girls memory game flop
Also that morning, I played the memory game with my kids. The Super Hero Girls memory game, to be exact, because they don’t really make adult memory game versions with, say, characters from The Office. (Oooh, I may have to patent that.) Anyway, if you are not forced to play the memory game on a regular basis, it’s where you set out a bunch of cards face down and then have to find matches by remembering where they are. I normally slaughter my kids at this game. I’m not smart about a lot of stuff - like logical process thinking - but I have a fairly remarkable memory. People at work are frequently astounded by it, and I was an excellent test-taker because I can memorize facts with the best of ‘em. Which is why, as my 4- and 7-year-olds stacked up match after Super Hero Girls match while I got nothing, I began to question my sanity. I could NOT remember where the other Batgirl was. Or Supergirl or Wonder Woman or anything. The kids trounced me, racking up eight matches each to my two. I’ve heard about COVID brain, the fuzzy feeling that lingers for some people after they’ve had the disease. I think the vaccine gives you a taste of that. Listen up CDC! Research opportunity! Make everyone who gets the vaccine play the Super Hero Girls memory game before and after the second shot and see what results you get. This is the kind of study federal grants were created for.
Meh
That is how I felt most of the day after the second shot. Just meh. Not particularly ill, just low-energy. A guy at work described it best on his day after the second shot: “If people attacked our building, I’d want to finish my lunch first before dealing with it.”
Armpit bulge
I was vaguely aware that I had lymph nodes prior to this experience, on both sides of my neck and probably somewhere near my armpits. By Sunday, I felt almost completely back to normal, except now I had armpit cancer. A very sore lump had appeared there. Then I remembered there might be a lymph node nearby! I did some Googling, and sure enough, it was starting to come out that some recipients of the vaccine, particularly Pfizer, were getting swollen lymph nodes in the arms where they’d gotten their vaccine. Bingo! By Tuesday, my previously feared armpit malignancy was totally gone.
Given these side effects, would I do it over again? YES. Five hundred times if that’s what it took to have Super Bowl parties, school without masks or iPads, nursing home visits, travel and assurance that my parents are safe. And you should, too. Please get it as soon as you’re eligible. Just maybe schedule a day off afterward and don’t try to take on any kids in high-stakes memory games for 48 hours.
