Thankful for a literal shot in the arm
A shot in the arm: Never did those words sound so good. We commonly use this colloquialism to describe something that gives us hope, encouragement or energy. In all my years of using this phrase, it was always meant in the figurative sense. Not once did I use it to imply an actual shot. A needle. An injection. Into the arm. My arm. Not once. Until now.
It has been nearly a year since COVID-19 infiltrated our lives, since it derailed our habits and our comings and goings. It’s been a year since we were forced to distance ourselves from those we love. I am relatively sure none of us considered that it would last as long as it has and would change our world as much as it did.
And for so long, we felt hopeless. Until now. It comes down to a shot in the arm. That shot is delivering hope, and perhaps, a glimpse at the proverbial light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.
It is interesting to me to note that the actual shot in the arm has truly brought me joy, encouragement and energy. While I do not suffer from trypanophobia (fear of needles), I am also not one who loves getting injections. However, the day I received my first shot in the arm was one of the happiest and most exciting days in recent history. And the second was even more so.
While I know not everyone has been able to get their vaccines yet, I implore you, do not give up trying. There are more and more places offering these vaccines; don’t just assume you won’t be able to find one. Keep trying, never give up. Because the shot in the arm that comes from this shot in the arm is well worth the trouble.
Perhaps we should thank Francis Rynd who, back in the mid 1800s, made the first successful injection of medicine into an arm using a steel hypodermic needle. From that time, the process was improved upon and honed by many brilliant minds, and for the next century, many drugs were regularly injected. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the glass syringe was mass produced by the Chance Brothers’ Birmingham Glass Works. And the rest is history.
However, the term shot in the arm was not used colloquially for much later, when in the early 1900s, a newspaper in Maine used it to illustrate a point in an article.
According to an article posted online at https:// medium.com/science-soul by Melissa Gouty, the term dates back to 1916, when the Lewistown Evening Journal was quoted as saying, “The vets can give politics a shot in the arm, and the political leaders realize it ...”
Apparently, this phrase caught on and has been used and likely overused for many years. But in 2021, it takes on a whole new meaning. This year we go back to our roots and when we talk about a shot in the arm, we mean it, wholeheartedly and literally.
I remain in awe of the vaccine companies and the many researchers and scientists who worked tirelessly to bring us a shot in the arm so quickly. And I salute all the healthcare workers who are working tirelessly to actually deliver our shot in the arm. I truly hope that anyone reading this has had the shot in the arm or is getting one soon. That will indeed get us all closer to the end of that tunnel.
When the husband of a close friend died of COVID-19, Theresa Adams felt helpless.
The man’s death in April was among the first identified with the coronavirus in Berks County, said Adams, a retired nurse.
“It was very distressing,” she said. “I just tried to think of something I could do.”
With another friend’s encouragement, Adams, 70, of Exeter Township called the Reading Hospital to volunteer and was asked if she could sew masks. Though she agreed, she wasn’t sure she was up to the task. Adams had packed away her sewing machine about a decade earlier while earning a doctoral degree at Alvernia University, and it had stayed in the closet.
“I wasn’t sure I would remember how to sew,” she said, noting she started by buying a kit for 10 masks at a local craft store.
It wasn’t long before she had a system in place for churning out hundreds of two-layer, reversible masks each day. She works assembly-line style, first cutting the bolts of donated and hospital-supplied material into manageable sections for washing, drying and ironing. She cuts the mask pieces using a template made by her husband, retired radio personality Charlie Adams.