After the shots

Going on sixty hours since I had my second Pfizer shot.    Sixty hours of watching myself closely, waiting for the dread onset of "side effects."  So far, I'm happy to report, no side effects.

I've read that if you're going to have side effects, you'll get them in the first day or two.  Other writers say the first day or three.  I will have completed Day Three by tomorrow morning.  I suspect I'm not going to have side effects.  None.  Not even a slight inflammation around the injection site.  

Some would be triumphantly relieved.  And sure, I am, to an extent.  But then I begin wondering, why am I not experiencing side effects?  Was the vaccine deficient?  Is there fraud involved, and did Nurse Placebo smirkingly inject me with mere saline solution?  Back when they gave us kids smallpox vaccinations, they had to check after a few days to make sure the vaccination "took."  Did my vaccination "take"?  Why is no one checking?

And some people actually consider me to be goofy and carefree!  Goofy, maybe.

I've read over and over that I must not be concerned just because I get no side effects, that wonderful things are happening inside me nonetheless.  That some people's bodies just don't get all outwardly hysterical about it.  Except, of course, for that first time I had a typhoid shot.  My God!  I had a class paper due the next day, and I wrote it with a splitting headache and a fever, hardly able to stay awake.  Now those were "side effects"!

Ok, I'm going to assume for the sake of sanity that the Pfizer vaccine "took," that it always "takes," with everyone.  Therefore, according to Pfizer's studies, I'll be 95 percent protected by Tuesday, and will certainly be protected, as recommended by the CDC, by the following Tuesday.  I, of course, will wait for the later date, because that's how I approach danger.  Cautiously.

And then there are the questions of whether I'm part of the unlucky five percent, and whether Pfizer's vaccine will protect me against the dread South Africa "variant."  But I'll worry about all that later.

I'm assuming that by August, I'll be confident of my immunity, nay, of my immortality.  And that the kind of people I hang out with will have similarly fortified themselves against the Covid-19 virus.  

And that's why I've agreed to go on a five-day rafting trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in August.  Our raft will be moving fast, and the viruses will be hard pressed to catch up with us.  And we'll be in the Idaho Wilderness.  

So far as I know, this will be my first break out of the self-imposed stay-at-home isolation under which I've suffered for the past 12 months.  (Aside from a little local day hiking I plan to do before then.)   Plans are for five of us to be on the raft (plus a guide who knows what he's doing raft-wise).  So -- some outdoor excitement plus some real honest human beings to talk with. 

I'm looking forward to it.  Begone, Covid-19 viruses.  Begone.