roadrunnertwice | The side-effects

I got my second Moderna shot on Wednesday afternoon, and as expected, it was a rough fuckin ride. A solid 27 hours of nightmare-tier body flu, basically; fever, muscle pain, headache, obsessive pseudo-geometric not-quite-hallucinations, the complete package. I'm writing this at 4 AM on Friday, and the fever finally broke about an hour ago, so I'm eating some cheese toast and enjoying a moment of semi-lucidity.

The first shot sank with hardly a ripple — I got tired in the afternoon the next two days, whatever. I rode out to the appointment for this one with a group of friends, and it sounds like no one else got hit anywhere near this hard. (Ruth was in a pretty bad way too, but she was at least able to get up and read and watch TV for a bit.)

About halfway through the ordeal, I finally started accepting something that I kind of always knew but hadn't really let myself acknowledge for the last year — if I had actually gotten COVID, there's a decent chance it would have killed me or permanently maimed me.

Because this is the exact pattern on those worst cases, right? Zero reaction for a long time in the initial infection, followed by a massively disproportionate immune backlash? And my immune system goes somewhat berserk for most things.

But, I should be protected for a while now, so, I'm hyped about that.