No anti-climax, sense of freedom returned at looking ahead after getting my first jab
Cocooner Kevin Mulligan reflects on living with COVID at this difficult time
IT was over in minutes.
In some ways it was an anti-climax.
I had waited so long, talked endlessly about it.
I envied those who already got it.
I moaned about others, younger in age, who already had it.
I vented my anger at those who had jumped the queue.
Never before in the 78 years I have spent on this earth did a moment hold such importance.
It was of course the moment I got my first jab last week.
Sleep was difficult the night before, the sense of apprehension that something would go wrong was hard to eradicate from the thought process.
The silence from the phone that meant the appointment wasn’t cancelled due to a lack of vaccines was golden.
The need for a short-sleeve shirt on a chilly April morning didn’t seem to matter.
I was on my way to get my first vaccines and that’s all that mattered.
The smiling receptionist greeted me at the door, checking that that day.
Immediately I was ushered into the waiting room which had been transformed into a vaccination centre.
‘In which arm do you want the jab’ I was asked by my doctor.
‘Does it matter’ I asked, only to be told it was my choice.
I took it in the right, and in the blink of an eye it was over. No fuss, no dramatics.
St. Patrick’s bell didn’t ring or anything like that to mark the occasion.
In some ways I felt it should have.
Afterwards I was ushered into a room, a label attached to my coat indicating when the 15 minutes expired to allow me leave.
Surrounded by equally bemused and excited recipients who ignored the normal protocol or reserved silence normal in a waiting room for they kept jabbering away not knowing what they were saying.
Above the din I thought of all the people I knew who died in the last year.
I was on the list for
Some as a result of Covid others from natural causes.
I thought about the hardships that the country and the world has had to endure.
Here I am having received by first jab of a magic formula devised in some lab in Germany by some saint - a saviour of humanity who was giving me back my life.
Immediately I was asked my a friend if I was alright. -
I’m better than alright, I’m elated and deeply relived.
I didn’t know until that moment how much anxiety I’d been carrying about catching Covid or worse, spreading it to people I love.
I didn’t know until then how much I missed hugging family, how much I missed being round people without wondering if I’d get sick or die.
Yes, I’m going to be extra careful with masks and distancing even after my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
These shots are giving me freedom. Freedom to go to family gatherings. Freedom to go to have a coffee at the Square without fear with other vaccinated people.
When I got home, I was a text machine.
Family, friends, neighbours, strangers all willing and want
ing to share my good fortune.
It’s as if the shackles that have inhibited life for a year have suddenly been taken off.
My hope is that everyone will soon find their own freedom in the joy that vaccines brings.
I may seem like an anti-climax, but I can assure you it is anything but.