And welcome to what promises to be a quite momentous week for your friendly neighbourhood blogger.
It’s a week which has the potential to be truly life changing. A week which has been long anticipated and which should live in the memory for at least the short-term future.
This time next week, you see, I will have had my first COVID-19 vaccination.
Tiers For Fears
For those who are unaware, I find myself on the vulnerable list when it comes to Coronavirus. I’m not in the top tier of vulnerability. I’m neither that old (yet), nor that sick. I do have MS, however, and as an unwelcome bonus, a lymphocyte count that is positively subterranean.
For those of you who wouldn’t know a lymphocyte if it jumped out at you wearing an ‘I’m a lymphocyte. Ask me how’ T-shirt while singing the lymphocyte national anthem (No, I’ve got no idea, either), let me give you the lowdown.
In The Blood
A lymphocyte is a type of white blood cell that you, me, The Queen, Kylie, and just about everybody else has swimming through their veins alongside the more widely pictured red blood cells. They are manufactured in the bone marrow and, funnily enough, in the lymphatic system. Their function is to create antibodies and lead the charge against infections and viruses.
I do still have these helpful little cells swimming around my body, but I don’t have as many as I should have. It’s something that was highlighted when I had my first discussion about DMT (disease modifying therapy) to help slow my MS and mitigate its effect on my ailing body. This all adds up to any help my immune system can get being more than welcome, and it’s the reason I will positively skip (Well, you know what I mean) to next Wednesday morning’s appointment.
Time, Gentlemen, Please!
Now, although I called the vaccination life changing, the truth is, it will take some time before the full benefit of the jab will take effect. This partially because there is a lag between the jab and the body’s learned response to fighting the virus, it now recognises. This, form what I can gather, could be up to three weeks. So, no getting the jab, ripping the mask off and popping down to the boozer (sadly).
A lymphocyte is a type of white blood cell that you, me, The Queen, Kylie, and just about everybody else has swimming through their veins alongside the more widely pictured red blood cells. They are manufactured in the bone marrow and, funnily enough, in the lymphatic system. Their function is to create antibodies and lead the charge against infections and viruses.
I do still have these helpful little cells swimming around my body, but I don’t have as many as I should have. It’s something that was highlighted when I had my first discussion about DMT (disease modifying therapy) to help slow my MS and mitigate its effect on my ailing body. This all adds up to any help my immune system can get being more than welcome, and it’s the reason I will positively skip (Well, you know what I mean) to next Wednesday morning’s appointment.
Time, Gentlemen, Please!
Now, although I called the vaccination life changing, the truth is, it will take some time before the full benefit of the jab will take effect. This partially because there is a lag between the jab and the body’s learned response to fighting the virus, it now recognises. This, form what I can gather, could be up to three weeks. So, no getting the jab, ripping the mask off and popping down to the boozer (sadly).
Secondly, the vaccine works by aiding your body to identify and fight the virus before it gets too much of a grip on you, it does not stop you catching it, and it does not stop you passing it on. This means that, assuming you’re not okay with infecting potentially unvaccinated people, prolonging the virus’s presence in the community, and thus letting it mutate and sneak past these hard-won defences, then a mask and a degree of care in social situations would still be advisable.
I know this isn’t what people want to hear. I know folk are pining for the pre-covid days of yore when socialising wasn’t something you had to think about, and I understand completely the rise of the conspiracy theories and the anti-vaccine movements, even if I think they’re (to say the least) somewhat misinformed. For me the truth of the matter is the sooner we get everyone vaccinated, the harder the virus will find it to circulate.
Tea And Sympathy
In time, this should lead to one of two eventualities. Either the virus dies out or as with the flu, its potency fades as its future mutations favour transmission over lethality. After all, a virus wants (if wants is the right word) nothing more than to live and to multiply as with all life and a healthier host is more mobile and therefore a more efficient vehicle to facilitate its survival.
So, yes. I see next week’s shot in the arm as a small win for this particular man but only a minor step on the road to victory for mankind (sorry, did I go a bit Neil Armstrong there?). The short-term effects might be unpleasant, but I will bear them with my patented stoic hardiness, and try not to cry too much. With a little luck the tea and sympathy I provided for Tina, my care worker wife, when she had her jab will prove a worthy investment and I will have my brow mopped, my hand held, and my tea made. I might even get the odd sympathetic ‘ooh, sore’. You never know.
Theory Test
What I do know is any discomfort is likely to be temporary and a mere drop in the ocean compared to the virus and its potential long-term effects. I also suspect my DNA will remain unaffected, that my mind will remain uncontrolled, and that Bill Gates will remain unconcerned with implanting microchips into people who would gladly carry them around for him on a daily basis.
My hope, as always, is that we, as one human race, can come together, and realise we are not simply individuals, but integral parts of a greater whole. My hope is, by looking out for our fellow man (and woman) we can beat Covid.
Well, that and the tea thing.
Until next time…
I know this isn’t what people want to hear. I know folk are pining for the pre-covid days of yore when socialising wasn’t something you had to think about, and I understand completely the rise of the conspiracy theories and the anti-vaccine movements, even if I think they’re (to say the least) somewhat misinformed. For me the truth of the matter is the sooner we get everyone vaccinated, the harder the virus will find it to circulate.
Tea And Sympathy
In time, this should lead to one of two eventualities. Either the virus dies out or as with the flu, its potency fades as its future mutations favour transmission over lethality. After all, a virus wants (if wants is the right word) nothing more than to live and to multiply as with all life and a healthier host is more mobile and therefore a more efficient vehicle to facilitate its survival.
So, yes. I see next week’s shot in the arm as a small win for this particular man but only a minor step on the road to victory for mankind (sorry, did I go a bit Neil Armstrong there?). The short-term effects might be unpleasant, but I will bear them with my patented stoic hardiness, and try not to cry too much. With a little luck the tea and sympathy I provided for Tina, my care worker wife, when she had her jab will prove a worthy investment and I will have my brow mopped, my hand held, and my tea made. I might even get the odd sympathetic ‘ooh, sore’. You never know.
Theory Test
What I do know is any discomfort is likely to be temporary and a mere drop in the ocean compared to the virus and its potential long-term effects. I also suspect my DNA will remain unaffected, that my mind will remain uncontrolled, and that Bill Gates will remain unconcerned with implanting microchips into people who would gladly carry them around for him on a daily basis.
My hope, as always, is that we, as one human race, can come together, and realise we are not simply individuals, but integral parts of a greater whole. My hope is, by looking out for our fellow man (and woman) we can beat Covid.
Well, that and the tea thing.
Until next time…
(For obvious reasons, next weeks blog post will be delayed until Friday the 26th)
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