Not Getting The Vaccine Is The Ultimate Gamble

I got my second dose of the Moderna vaccine this week and it wasn’t that much fun. My wife is Native American and because she agreed to marry me, I was eligible for the first dose a littler earlier than I otherwise might have been. So on Wednesday, we drove out to Chemawa High School in Salem, OR to write the closing chapter in our COVID story.

Like many other neurotic Jews, I’m absolutely convinced I already had COVID. In December of 2019, I got really sick for a good three month stretch. During flu season, I always get sick but this one was a little different. I had a fever that lasted a week and a persistent cough that lasted three months. I judge my levels of sickness by how annoyed my wife gets by my coughing and for this one she strongly considered relocating to another state. The first case of COVID in the U.S. wasn’t confirmed until January of 2020 but it’s more than likely the virus was within out midst a long time before that and certainly before Rudy Gobert jokingly touched all the microphones at that fateful press conference.

Driving home after the second dose, I felt great. Of course I had heard the rumors that with the Moderna vaccine you get the chills and a fever but that wouldn’t happen to me because I already had COVID. And then at about 11:30 PM last night, I got the chills and a fever and started to sweat like Joel Embiid in a sauna. Every part of my body ached and at this point I wondered, for a split second, if it was all worth it.

To be fair, I had a colonoscopy last week and so in the course of five days I drained my colon of all the Fritos and Cheetos that had been stored deep inside that dark, mysterious cavern since 1976 and had a COVID vaccine tricking my body to feel like it was being attacked by the deadliest virus to appear on our soil since the Spanish flu. Of all the weeks my body has endured, this was probably the worst one yet other than the time I tried to jump a Huffy dirt bike over a barbed wire fence, got caught on the fence and had the barb wire rip a good portion of the skin off my arm. That week sucked too.

Sweating it out last night, I admit had the first anti-vaxxer thoughts of my life.

‘I was feeling good. And now I feel like shit. Why did I do this to myself?’

‘I could’ve just avoided people for another few years. That wouldn’t be so bad.’

‘Next they’re gonna come for my guns. I don’t have any guns but isn’t that something anti-axxers say too?’ 

‘If I masturbate while my body is reacting to the second dose, will I negate the vaccine?’

Of course I know it’s worth it. Not getting the vaccine and hoping I wouldn’t catch the virus would’ve been the dumbest gamble of my life, one far too many Americans seem willing to take. I’m excited to go visit my parents. I’m excited to not have to cross the street every time I see another human being walking towards me. I’m excited to feel normal again. The challenge now is to convince everyone on the fence to go ahead and get vaccinated so we can reach herd immunity. According to the New York Times, COVID has killed more than 568,000 Americans so far.  If that sobering statistic doesn’t inspire you to get the shot, I’m not sure what will.