I am not throwing away my shot

Quite a few weeks ago, minim_calibre and I were facetiming and she was idly refreshing the vaccine-finder sites, because we had become eligible that day but good luck finding any fucking appointments for shots. At one point sort of late at night, she told me that the city site had some appointments, so we excitedly scheduled our first shots. She finished before me, so got an appointment on April 7, and I, slower, got one for the 15th. That was the day everyone over 16 would become eligible, so I was very happy to have an appointment--it was going to be tough, considering almost two million more people would be eligible and only about 400,000 doses show up each time they get new shipments.

I wasn't super thrilled about going to the big mass vaccination site up at the sportsball stadiums, because getting out of here in West Seattle is such a freaking ordeal with our only big bridge shut down for years, but I was happy to have anything at all. I grilled min about what to expect after she had her first shot, and I was really psyched.

Fast forward to this past Monday and I get a text from the city saying that my appointment was successfully cancelled, and then another one saying my second vaccination had been successfully cancelled. I was completely freaked out and livid--eventually some information (not from the goddamn city, of course) started trickling in, but it didn't match my experience at all: it sounded like someone had posted a link from social media for appointments that were reserved for volunteers on that day, but I didn't get a link like they were saying, and I'm not on social media, I was using the city's legit site. We concluded that maybe they just summarily cancelled all the Thursday appointments because they didn't know which ones were legit, which is just...unreal.

It's been really hard to get appointments here, and I waited my turn diligently--watching as they maintained the 65 plus rule or two comorbidities for a really long time, wondering if they were ever going to drop it down to 60. They were letting fucking smokers get it, but not people like me, with only age as my qualification. It would never occur to me to cut in line or try to invent conditions to get signed up, even though a lot of the sites didn't update their eligibility status for a while and I had to lie to try to get in to the site only to find out they didn't have any vaccine available. I wanted to find something closer to home, but that wasn't even feasible at all.

So finally, at the end of the day, I got an email from the city basically saying that we had cut in line and taken appointments that had been reserved for volunteers, which was like a slap in the face. When I called the customer service number, the woman all but called me a liar, saying that we couldn't have made honest appointments on the actual city site. But min had already had her appointment, and obviously other people had successfully made them too.

I spent the entire day on the phone, first trying to figure out what was going on and then trying to scramble for an appointment that wasn't hours away. I'd been sent a link from the university's vaccination sites saying I was eligible, but the invitation only lasted a few days, so I called anyway to try to see if I could still get an appointment. They did let me, but I had to go up north; still, I felt really desperate, so I took it. It was essentially across the street from the cemetery where my family are buried, so I figured I could go tend to their graves, since I haven't been able to get up there in over a year, because pandemic and bridge closure. Also, Dick's--the best cheap but good burgers in Seattle are at a drive-in called Dick's, but they refuse to build any locations down here and so with the bridge out, I never get to go. Two cheeseburgers and a chocolate shake, yay.

Of course, it was hilariously, unseasonably, blisteringly hot Friday, and by the time I got there I couldn't breathe, I was so tense and hot and my mask is so thick, and they were afraid I had a temperature at first. But I got my first shot, and got the graves a little tended to, and got some Dick's, and was able to pop by and visit with gattagrigia .

I felt fine until I got home quite a few hours later, when I started to really feel the sore arm and some aches. I didn't know how much of that was digging around trying to find the plot flower vases, though--they were really, really overgrown. But Saturday morning I couldn't lift my arm above boob level, and I had some intestinal distress which only got worse today. I think I'll be okay at some point here, but it's not as bad as it could be and it beats the hell out of having COVID.