Boosted and busy

I had my Covid booster shot this week, and while that went well on the day, it had been delayed by things I had to do, and then there were some issues afterward. In other words, it’s been pretty typical of how things have gone recently.

I seem to use up nearly all my available time lately, and considering that time in a day is one thing I ordinarily have plenty of, that’s a pretty big deal. As I said recently, most of my days lately left me feeling like I was spinning my wheels, and that certainly continued into this week.

The main frustration from the middle of last week on into this week was that I was waiting for a delivery. I’d ordered an iPhone 13 Pro from Apple on Sunday, January 2, and a couple days later I got an email telling me the order had shipped and would arrive on January 10. The thing is, my previous orders always arrived early, so I assumed this one would, too. What made it so difficult was that the tracking site for the courier, DHL, was pretty useless.

It started out well enough: I knew it had left Sydney late Tuesday evening, January 4, and had arrived in Auckland in the small hours of Wednesday morning. Thursday it said, “Arrived at delivery facility” at “NZ Regional Service Area – New Zealand”, which sounded like that was/could be Hamilton. Less than 15 minutes later, it said, “Forwarded for delivery”. I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but thought it could mean it was out for delivery. It wasn’t.

The next day, Friday, nothing changed until late morning when it again said, “Forwarded for delivery” and that it was at “NZ Regional Service Area – New Zealand”. Maybe there was more than one? At any rate, that was it for the day—and week.

DHL doesn’t deliver on weekends (or, at least, wasn’t paid to), so at 7:42am Monday morning, the status changed to “With delivery courier”. It arrived six hours later, at 1:41pm.

I ended up staying home on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday because I wasn’t even remotely clear when the phone would be delivered. On Friday, I ordered groceries to be delivered so I could get that taken care of, and my prescriptions were also delivered, so staying home wasn’t a total loss. I’d have left the house if only their tracking system had been just slightly clearer—such as, saying merely what day it was due to be delivered, something that was nowhere on their page. That alone would’ve meant, I could’ve had my booster on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.

Even on Monday I still had no clear idea when it’d arrive, so I planned nothing at all, which was because they didn’t give any sort of delivery window (by comparison, the supermarket gives me a three hour window, then texts me on the day with a more precise hour-long window, then again a few minutes before the truck arrives). If DHL had given me even a four-hour window, I might’ve been able to go get my booster jab on Monday, too, though that turned out to be a good thing.

Once the phone arrived, I took my time getting it set up, and didn’t even put the SIM in until shortly before I went to bed. I’m giving my old phone to my mother-in-law to try, since it will enable her to scan the Covid QR code, rather than having to manually sign in (only smartphones have that capability). If she can’t stand it, it won’t matter, since I didn’t buy a new phone for her that I’d then have to try to sell or whatever.

I needed to get a case for the phone, and I planned to go to the mall, Te Awa, to get one on Tuesday, and also planned to see if the Vaccination Centre there was accepting walk-ins for boosters. However, I was invited to my mother-in-law’s place for dinner Tuesday night, and decided against getting jabbed in case I felt extremely tired like I did after the first jab.

Wednesday came, and off I went. The phone case was easy enough to find (and it’s a good one), and the Vaccination Centre was accepting walk-ins, so I was set. I was done with the whole process in only a few minutes—in fact, the 15-minute post-jab waiting time was the longest part (that's when I took the selfie up top). I felt fine all evening, and even went to bed a little early (for me).

The next morning, Thursday, I felt fine. I got up extra early (again, for me…), and was carrying on with my day—until I couldn’t. I explained it on my personal Facebook:

Let me say first, this is actually a GOOD thing, but: It turns out it took around 24 hours for reactions to set in. It started with me being VERY tired and sleepy, like I was after my first jab, but this time I didn’t feel better after sleeping (dozing, actually; I couldn’t settle for a good sleep). By late afternoon, a little while ago, I realised I was also feeling pretty crappy (kinda flu-like), so I took a couple paracetamol, which hasn’t taken effect yet. I definitely feel worse now than I did after either main dose—or both combined.

This is, of course, a very good thing because it means my immune system is responding and building its fortress to keep Rona Omicron OUT. But if I feel this yucky as my body builds its defences, I can only imagine how awful it could’ve been if I’d never been vaccinated!!!

So, I might be feeling yucky at the moment, but it makes me happy to know my body is working hard to build defences to protect me from the people who don’t care about keeping others or themselves safe.

As it happens, I did start to feel better when the paracetamol took effect, and I didn’t need another dose. My arm felt less sore, too. Once again, I went to bed early (for me…).

When I woke up yesterday morning, I again felt fine, and my arm was no longer sore. I was guarded, though, and went ahead and mowed the lawns. Aside from getting hot in the late morning heat, it went well. I said on Facebook:

For those following along at home, I feel fine today—and more than 48 hours after the booster, I now feel safe saying that. In fact, I mowed my "lawns" today, and that closed the Exercise Ring on my watch, so I'm clearly doing fine.

I’ve seen other people who had a reaction to the booster the day after they got it, so I wasn’t surprised or worried or whatever. Really, I was just a bit annoyed.

All that disruption caused by waiting for deliveries meant that other things got pushed out, too. Then Thursday, despite its early start, became a total write-off when the reaction set in. I’m now quite a bit behind on various projects, including several blog posts I’d planned to publish my now—they haven’t even been written yet, which is an indication of how behind schedule (so-called) I am right now. Not that it matters, really, but that, too, left me feeling a bit annoyed.

Still, the disruptions of the past week and a half are now over, so most things should get back to normal. However, I know that parts of this coming week will be very busy, so I’m assuming nothing. I do hope I’ll have the time and energy to blog about it, though.