Chapter 17: Covid 19 Vaccine- Parking Lot War Edition

Hi friends,

Nice to see you again! I know the last post was pretty intense. Part of me wants to apologize for that, but then I would be lying, so I won't. 😊 Part of the reason why I'm writing this blog is to be me, unapologetically myself, completely honest, and well...... honestly, that is exactly what happened.🤷 At the end of the day I just wanted to make it clear, in no way am I trying to speak ill of, or purposefully slander anyone in healthcare. I am one of them myself, and that's really not who I am as a person.   Im hoping most of you know that by now. However, what I am trying to do is to bring light to a really hard, rough, difficult, and all round terrifying situation. Having cancer is scary, terrifying, lonely, not to mention emotionally, and physically exhausting. Not just those of us who have actually been diagnosed, which takes the most toll, but those of you out there who are "deep in the trenches with us", to not only see us through, but, lift us up as well to be able to function, metaphorically and literally. Husbands, wives, best friends, etc...As for me, I don't need to say who you are, deep down you already know. I love you and salute you, ALL of you. Thank you.🤟💖💝

Now, why don't we take a quick break from our regularly scheduled program and focus on something pretty amazing. Today was a big day, one that I wasn't sure would come. Well anytime soon anyway. I actually got my first dose of the Pfizer Covid 19 vaccine!👏👏👏🥂 WHOO HOO! Im very excited! To be honest I was so excited to share it with all of you, that I just put up the MRI post last night and i'm already writing this one. It's literally Tuesday night at 9:00pm and im ready to bust this out for you. It's a good one.

Let's be honest, we all have our speculations of how and where Covid 19 started. That being said, naturally I have my own opinions as well. There are so many ideas and conspiracies out there from it "being created in a lab" 🧫 to "people eating bats" 🦇that I don't even want to go there, or even want to touch that with a 6 foot pole.👨🚫🚫🚫👩 HAHA get it? 6 ft. 😆 ugh ok fine 🤪....However, what I do know for sure, the ENTIRE world has forever changed into its "new normal". Lort willing, if we are all able to see the day, that we are able to hangout and hug each other again, there will always be something in the back of our minds related to Covid 19 in some way, shape, or form. Wether it's a memory of how long you waited to see that person during "lockdown". Or not thinking twice about wanting to put on a mask if you hear a family member cough. Despite them having been a chain smoker for the past 30 years.😆 Lets face it, we are all forever changed.

What I do know for sure, the past year for me will be a time I will never forget, cancer diagnosis aside. Millions of people have died. Alone. Without family or loved ones beside them. Despite being high risk myself, i.e cancer, “morbidly obese”, sleep apnea, I wanted to do what I could do to stop the spread. Not only for myself but for everyone. Trust me, I know, no-one wants this crap to go on forever. I'm frustrated and over it as well. We just all need to do our best to keep ourselves, and others safe, to get this under control. Well.....if that means:

• Not leaving my house(only for essentials) for over a year, ⛔️ And even when I did, had to go on a 3 day roadtrip, two day donkey ride, AND THEN a 12 hour hike uphill🏔 just to find any store that had any remnants of toilet paper or paper towel 
• Binge watching Tik ToK videos till 4am, 🎥👯‍♀️
• Baking ALL the things, forget banana bread, I chose ALL the things to tackle👩🏻‍🍳
• Forgetting what it feels like to wear pants (because lets be honest none of us wear them anymore) and now all they do is sit in our closets getting dusty AF 👖
• Finding a way to incorporate some kind of liquor into literally ever thing ive eaten, even scrambled eggs for breakfast 🍳🍷
• Eating a weeks worth of snacks in an hour and a half, while binge watching ALL of Netflix. Yeah thats right, not just one show, literally ALL of them. Including the foreign ones I had no idea what was going on and was too lazy to read the subtitles but I let it play anyway🍰🍕🍔🍪🍓🍩🍒🌮🍭🥑🍌🍎🍊🍦🍫🍍🍟
• Getting sick of seeing all the clutter that i'm too lazy to clean, then all of a sudden becoming a DIY Queen that should be featured on HGTV or in Architectural Digest magazine.🪜🪵🪜

Then ill just have to take one for the team.😆 Just kidding, I didn't do ALL of those things. But I will tell you I did have to delete the Tik Tok app.🙈😂

Which brings up to today. For the longest time I was very anti-vaccine, in fact h3ll bent against it. Usually it takes years to develop something like that. i.e. trials, testing etc. I wasn't trying to be anyone's guinea pig🙅 So what changed you ask? well sounds super cliche, but cancer changed it. I never saw myself as high risk, it was always the other people in my life, not me. The reality set in. I was vulnerable, I wasn't the "superhero" or "captain save em' all" anymore.🦸🏻‍♀️🙍🏻 I was the one who needed saving. Not to mention, I wasn't scared to die anymore. Apparently this is a "common revelation" for people diagnosed, as per my doctor. I just figured what do I have to loose other then reduced risk, and more time with those I love. At this point the benefits well outweighed the risk. Not to mention many people I knew in healthcare had already gotten it, so I had them to talk to. 😏 Thanks guys for being the guinea pigs instead of me🙏🏻, preash'-iate it!😉😂

So im sure you are all wondering how it went and what happened. Pretty simple I'd say. I got signed up through work, they sent me a confirmation email of where to go and what time to be there. All in all, Id like to say kudos to the organizers of this. They did a really amazing job! it was very well organized, flowed well, and seems everyone knew what they were doing.👍🏻

On my way to the site, the road was very clearly marked, to avoid any confusion which really helped. There was PLENTY of parking which was great as they spaced everyone out well in terms of appointment timing. Just for my own peace of mind, I parked a little far away to avoid any unnecessary person interaction. Once I got in, quickly  a woman greeted me and directed me where I could go and get screened, which I did. I then went down the hall to another large room with hundreds of square feet roped off for people to line up. Lucky for me there was only 2 people in front of me waiting to register. Funny enough, seems the only people there who were not social distancing were the staff who were actually working there.😟

I then went over to a man behind a glass window who asked me a bunch of questions and then booked my next dose appointment right away. July 6th, cant wait! Once again, very efficient.👏  I was then directed to the next room while encouraged to sanitize my hands for the 17 hundredth time. Let's be honest, not a bad thing. I then sat down in front of a man who, was a doctor at some point in his life.  He asked me a variety of questions about different things, health related of corse. One of them being if I was pregnant, immediately I said no. But in the back of my mind, wanted to cry. Its not his fault, he doesn't know my backstory, nor wants to hear it i'm sure. But it hurt😔...every word in that question was like a dagger in not only my heart, but also my now non-existent uterus. Dammit. DAMMIT! It was at that point I realized I will forever feel that, it will never go away, and neither will that question. I will have to hear it for at least the next 20 years, until it flips to "do you have any kids" or the automatic assumption of “how old are your kids?” At which point my answer will still forever be no. The reality is, this is a burden I will forever have to live with, it will never go away. It may eventually hurt less, but it will NEVER.....EVER.....go away.😢 It was at that point he then asked me if I was breast feeding. Well GEEZ! WHAT THE H3LL! I know they are standard questions but G.DAMMIT  people. My brain then restarted the whole dagger scenario all over again. Fun times.

He then proceeded to mumble a bunch of stuff off about what to look out for and what he was going to do. To be honest, seeing as he was wearing a face shield and a mask, I had a really hard time understanding over half of what he said. But at least he wore protection, am I right?😉😂 Finally here it was, the moment of truth. No turning back now.😬 💉To be honest, he was great! he was very gentle and did a wonderful job, I felt almost nothing, and before I knew it, it was finished.👏 Way to go doc!👌

I would have tried to take a few more photos while I was there, but you're not allowed. Frowny face....😆 Seeing as I did mention a drug allergy to a non-related medication they asked me to stay 30 minutes after instead of the standard 15, which I was totally fine with. I wasn't sure that was ok with the staff working there though. After about 25 minutes, a woman was giving me a look across the room like I personally offended her, she then came up to me and asked me how long had I been there. Excuse me!? take it easy, trust me I don't want to be here longer than I have to. I have other more important things to do, like go home, take off my pants, and finish binge watching 90 day fiancé. 📺🍿It was at that point I told her I have to stay till 2:10, and she said ok 3 more minutes and walked away.😐 hmmm, well then, glad I got your approval.😒😆

Finally I was free! Been there done it, and got the document to prove it. Mind you I was hoping for like a cool headband🩹, flag🚩, button🔘, sticker🔆, or something at least!😐, but meh' I guess beggars cant be choosers. I guess the vaccine had to be enough for now. 🤷😂 Mind you I did get a congratulations from one of the staff on the way out, so thats something....😆👌

I then sanitized my hands one last time before walking out the door, and walked towards the parking lot. It was at that moment I realized there was going to be an issue. Naturally, because....well why not? FML. I arrived at my car and realized wow, this person parked very close to my drivers side.....Out of ALL the hundreds of free parking spots in this parking lot, they had to cuddle THAT close beside my car. REALLY!?

Naturally, I became upset. 😤🤬As you all know by now, I am not a small woman. Im definitely curvy where it counts. 😜 HOWEVER, can someone please tell me who could have fit in THAT space and be able to get in my drivers side door? Not me! thats for sure! As tiny as Ariana Grande is, she couldn't even fit through there on a good day after doing a 30 day fast. Like c'mon guys!🤨 

So what did I do you ask? well I'll tell you what I did. What any normal human being would do in this situation. I yelled, said copious amounts of swear words🤬,  got in the passenger side door and CLIMBED 🧗🏻‍♀️over into the drivers side seat. Yep thats what happened. There I was looking like Violet Beauregard from Charlie and the Chocolate factory, rolling around my front seat. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have any umpaloompas to assist or roll me around. Lort knows that would have helped for sure.

Honestly, really, I have NO IDEA why stuff like this happens to me?! I honestly couldn't have made this up even if I wanted to. Not to mention i'm sure none of you would have believed me, so OF CORSE I took pictures to prove my case.😂 See what I mean? Who the H3LL is going to fit through there?! As you can see on the other car was where my jacket rubbed off all the freakin dirt trying to get in my car.😡😡 Even a small sized dog 🐶would have trouble getting through there, how could anybody fit?!

Naturally at this point I was fuming, 😤I was beyond upset. Im sure it didn't help that the doctor asked if I was pregnant, but this certainly added salt to the wound for sure. For those of you who didn't believe me, look at the below picture of how many open spots there were! HONESTLY! its like the universe has it out for me or they are just having things happen to me on purpose so I would have some decent content for this blog.🤷😆

So after climbing Mount Everest 🏔just to get in my drivers seat, i'm sure you would assume that I turned on my car, angrily of corse, and went home. Well my dear friends you would be 100% wrong. I was SO upset that I sat in my car, and waited. Oh yeah I did. You bet your a$$ I waited for that person to come back out to their car.  I was about at the end of my rope with this garbage, and believe me, that person was gonna get the whole leaky/diaper/mould filled garbage bag thrown right at them as soon as they came out. Metaphorically of corse. I didn't care how long it was going to take, I had nowhere to be.

I waited a solid 20 minutes for the person to come out. Since I had no clue who I was actually waiting for, every person I saw, I felt I was playing a game of double dutch.  Is it now?, is it now?, is it now? Every time I saw a person walk to their car I would get a brief surge or adrenaline thinking that was the culprit. Then being sadly let down when they walked past the car.🤨

Finally she surfaced, the evil car parking villain. 🦹🏼She walked back to her car and got in the driver side door with ease. Ugh, how I envied her, I felt like she was mocking me with how easy it was for her to get in.💪. 😆 I immediately turned on my car, rolled down the window and tried to get her attention. I didnt' want to get out of my car, first for my own safety of corse, and well I couldn't obviously. I finally got her attention and gestured for her to roll down her window. She looked confused, while trying to roll down her window but couldn't even turn her car on to do so. Not surprising seeing how "well" she parks. 🤨She then got out of her car and walked around to my rear driver side door. She asked me what I needed, which is when I proceeded to "politely" release the Kraken 👾and yell at her. Well I didn’t fully yell at her, it was more like a very stern conversation, and she 100% deserved it. She didn't need to know I just had major surgery a month ago, thats none of her business.  

What I did say to her however, was along the lines of "BE BETTER!, and don't suck so much at driving" in the nicest most effective way I could to get my point across. She then proceeded to apologize, at to which I reiterated to her to pay more attention to her surroundings and think of how your actions impacts others. At the end of the day, I feel if I didn't say anything, she wouldn't have known she was wrong and would have done it again with no hesitation. Seeing as 90% of the people who were in the vaccination clinic were over  70/80 yrs old. There's no way they could have gotten in their car, and would have had to stand in the cold.🤨🙄 I’m not usually a “manager seeking Karen” as the kids would say. But  on some level, we all have a little bit of “Karen” in us, and she needs to come out sometimes, like she did today. 🤷🏻‍♀️

No....... what she did was NOT OK!

I had no choice but to say something, and I dont regret it.

So my question to all of you is, honestly.... what would you have done in this situation? Let’s talk about it, leave it in the comments👇🏻

Until next Monday, ✌🏻To be continued....