Pfizer versus Freggiaro, Round 3

I got my booster shot yesterday at 4 pm. I had a restless night of trying to sleep, which I will not blame of the shot because it happens fairly regularly. I got up at 4 am and drank my coffee and gave Luke his 40 minute walk around 8 AM. But things were deteriorating quickly.

At 10 am I spent an hour in my garage using my torque wrenches to help a friend correct a shop mis-adjustment on his beautiful new frameset. When he left he said I looked tired. That wasn’t all.

I quickly developed a moderate headache. I have moderate aches and shooting pains. My back hurts. My eyelids are hot and heavy feeling. Of course I have two sore arms, since I followed CDC guidance and got both jabs at the same time. I have a low but noticeable fever.

I bedded down on the couch in my study at noon, piled on a couple of blankets and was quickly joined by Luke the Dog, who knows a soft warm place when he sees one. I fell asleep for a two hour nap.

Waking from the nap, I felt even worse. A planned date with Stoker will have to be postponed, although after so many years together I suppose a missed assignation is not such a big deal. I feel like I’m suffering from a hangover but without the fun part.

Now I know that the vaxocates (cut me some slack, it is hard to be funny when you feel poorly) will tell me this just means the vaccine is working. They might also tell me to quit complaining, since there are far worse conditions of suffering out there and this one is nothing. Having multiple dental implants, I would agree.

But the way I feel now has completely eliminated any trace of joie de vivre here on Brumby Road. If I felt like this all the time I might agree with Keats:

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
         I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
         To take into the air my quiet breath;
                Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
         To cease upon the midnight with no pain…

Things aren’t quite to that stage yet. But Pfizer certainly wins Round 3 by a Knockout.

Maybe this will help:

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;