Vaccination No.1! (Blog 258)

As I’m typing this up on a Thursday, I will be getting my first vaccination, tomorrow. What was booking the vaccination like, on Tuesday? (Apologies for the all over the place writing). I mean I understand the NHS website must be going through a lot of stress because of all the millions of people using it, but really I was only expecting slower loading times, if that. What actually happened was mental, quite frankly. I put in my postcode so as to get the nearest vaccination centres, and I was given about twenty sites all over the country. Birmingham, Nottingham, London, you name it. Even worse, they weren’t even given in the order of closeness, it was random! Ok, not to worry, 2 hours on the train to London doesn’t sound TOO bad, but why couldn’t I go there for my second vaccination? How complicated does this have to be? Maybe I should go through the Eurotunnel for jab No. 2?? Taking things to the point of ridiculousness, I could be the first person to get a jab on the moon. Ok, that was silly, but it would be a good anecdote. Part of me wishes that could happen, but the whole mission would cost billions of pounds, and of course, why?

My dad only had to travel 2 miles for both doses. That seemed very unfair to me. If anything, it should have been the other way round, as I’m more confused. Why should I have to go through the extra stress? My dad on the other hand rarely even uses road maps for places light years away. A concept bizarre to me. (If it wasn’t for satnavs, I’d probably be lost on the road to this day, after taking a wrong turn a few months ago. So lost in my car, I’d probably eventually starve. Not a good way to die, at all). Anyway, fortunately I made the website (remember the NHS web page? Sorry for going on a bit of a detour) go even weirder, meaning I had to redo all the data inputting and such. The refreshed site was MUCH more reasonable. Now I only have to travel 5 miles to Teddington and do less walking. (Though again, my dad did beat that. >:( )

Will this blog get posted on Friday? Hm. I really don’t know. I’m going to be a bit busy from the morning to the early afternoon, as I have ‘getting lost phobia’, meaning I’m giving myself an extra amount of time to find the venue and get back. I’m probably going to get there about an hour early, but hey. To pass the time in the centre, I could pretend I’ve already had the vaccine, say I feel really ill, colour parts of my skin black to look like sepsis, that kind of stuff. Classic pranking. Perhaps even better, I could go to the nearby Nando’s. Yum, yum. But should I go there before or after the whole jabbing event? I’m a little embarrassed to say my everyday, real-world planning abilities never really go much beyond that kind of stuff, but to be fair I did draw yet another great map. Don’t you need good spatial awareness, or something like that? Who knows. A few hours after the whole needle stabbing business, I’ll be gyming, (hopefully with no side effects causing a serious puking episode all over everyone) so yeah, maybe I won’t have the time to post on Friday. Surely Saturday at the latest, though. I guess bye for now!

Ok, I’m typing my experiences on a Friday! Will I proof read things on Saturday? Who knows?? Anyway! How did the day start? Unfortunately in the very early morning, I woke up in a bit of a daze to go and wee. When back in my room, I took my medication. However I was in such a daze, I didn’t realise I had already done so a few hours beforehand. Whoops. When I finally realised that, it was too late. :( Hopefully the extra meds didn’t reduce my white blood cell count, leading to a vaccine that ends up attacking me, but last time I mini overdosed I just had itchy fingers. Annoying, but surely not life threatening. Luckily I didn’t wake up coughing my face off, (I just had itchy fingers!) so I assumed I wouldn’t be too sick if I got something a little bit harmful inside of me. Feeling nice and healthy, I left my house to walk to the station in the rain. Would the weather make me ill? That would be annoying. That would mean me having to cancel my appointment and use that very ‘hit and miss’ (or rather balls) website again. Very annoying. Sadly however, there were more annoyances to come: My train was cancelled TWICE. My trademark hand drawn map better be DAMN good, as I soon found I only had twenty minutes to find my way around Teddington after leaving the public transport. :S (If the latest station updates were right).

When the transport finally came, the train announcer told everyone to do more waiting for an unspecified amount of time, but at least I was nice and snug inside the thing. After some painful uncertainty, I finally heard a triumphant bell-like sound from a train speaker. Great! I could get on with my journey! Nope, nothing happened. The bell was apparently meaningless. About a minute later I heard another one, and THEN things were fine. Maybe the first bell was a warmup bell, but have you heard of a warmup bell? I haven’t, anyway. After the first bell, (slightly all over the place writing, again :( ), I tried opening the train door to try and find out if the locomotive was going to start moving, and I couldn’t. Imagine getting stuck on a train that’s not even going anywhere. But as explained, things were fine. Phew! Once off the train, I found my map was pretty much useless. Did you know I was going to say that? Probably. I got some pretty clear directions from someone, but they just weren’t clear enough for someone like me. Not to worry, I found a bus, and everything was super-duper. Once off it, my map was getting seriously wet, and there was a risk the written booking reference that was mandatory for everyone getting a jab, was going to end up soggy and unreadable. BUT, I had an idea! cover my map with my jacket! If that’s not initiative, I don’t know what is. My school teachers said I lacked initiative, and I’d love to see their faces, now.

Once in the health centre waiting area, I was asked my ethnicity. I was thinking ‘you ARE joking? Are you blind??’ Then the guy explained I could be white British, or white European, or whatever. To be fair that made sense. Still though, I should have said I was African. Then I had to do more sitting and queuing, but at least it was stress-free sitting. Stupid trains. When called in to get my vaccine, I took off my coat and jumper. I soon found I was wearing my shirt back to front, but if I didn’t point that out, I doubt anyone would have noticed. Dammit. Then I was made to do MORE waiting for about fifteen minutes, just in case I had a bad reaction to the inoculation and died. Clearly, I didn’t die, but I could have at least pretended to be dying in front of those waiting to get the jab. THEN they’d have a reason to be nervous. Was my journey back home as hazardous as my first adventure? Nope, I found a bus stop almost immediately. I had to wait 15 minutes or so for the bus back to the station, but for me, that’s pretty good. However, when on the thing, I found I only travelled about 100 meters! Money wasted, though I did get some very good (better than ever) directions from the driver after leaving the transport. To celebrate a successful day, I got a Chinese curry. I got a popsicle for free! I didn’t even ask for it! Bye!

Quick update: It’s Saturday and my arm hurts! Bye!