After being in self-isolation for 16 months and wearing facemask, gloves and eye protections every time that I went out and being very anxious every time I interacted with people. I was extremely happy after meeting my GP in London, as I was able to book my appointments for both vaccination doses.
On 14th June, I had a GP appointment in order to have a wellbeing check-up. During my morning appointment, I was able to verify that I was invited for a vaccination and since I was not in the country, they marked it as I declined. Therefore, I needed to remove the marked before booking my COVID vaccinations date.
After my GP appointment, I returned home in order to book my vaccinations appointment. I needed to book this online (www.nhs.uk/covid-vaccination). At the website, they asked my basic information including my NHS number. I was able to book my first dose for Saturday 19th June morning and then my second dose on Saturday 14th August (8 weeks apart).
However, I had to book the appointment in two different centres but with the same specifications. After booking these appointments, I printed out the confirmation.
The confirmation describe that I needed to bring to the vaccination centre my reference number and a face covering. The confirmation also said that the appointment should take between 30 to 45 minutes as it involves answering question about your medical history and basic information about the vaccination. After the vaccination, you need to wait 15 minutes in order to see if you have a reaction to the vaccine.
On 19th June 2021 (Day 1), finally the day of my first dose arrived and this was the first step towards my new life after COVID-19. I was very excited for this as the hope of being able to go out without worrying of this disease was great, although this was the first step of a 10-week period.
After a nice breakfast, I left my house around 10.20 towards the vaccination centre. I choose the ExCel London because I wanted a big centre as they catered for large amount of people and I believed that those are the safest.
After a long walk because I was left at the main entrance of the ExCel, I arrived to centre at 10.53. At the main entrance, I used the vaccination centre entrance and was allowed entry by showing my booking reference.
After crossing the main entrance, I made my way to the vaccination centre where I showed my reference number again and I was ready for entering the first queue at 10.55.
After a very short queue, I arrived to the registration desk at 10.58, where I showed my reference number and verified all my details. Then, I was able to continue to the second queue and although the queue looked very small due to the size of the centre, there were like 20 people before me.
After 15 minutes of waiting in this queue, I entered the centre and join a smaller queue in order to enter the vaccination pods. After a 5-minute wait in this third queue, I finally entered the vaccination pods.
At the vaccination pod, I sat in order to answer the pre-assessment including questions of my general health, any allergies, my medications and if I was driving back. After finishing the pre-assessment, a nurse arrived in order to give me the vaccination and I was given an AstraZeneca vaccine.
After the vaccination, the nurse gave me some information leaflets about the COVID-19 vaccination programme including a guide, a leaflet “what to expect after vaccination”, and the vaccination side effects list. Finally, I was given my vaccination card (which I needed to take to the 2nd dose) and I took couple of stickers which I used to decorate my phone with the legend “I’ve had my COVID vaccination”.
After all this, I left the vaccination centre around 11.26 and since I was not driving back home, I was able to leave the centre straight away. After the vaccination, I was ready for an early lunch and then I spent all the afternoon reading all the documentation.
The entire process from the time I arrived to the registration desk to the time I left the vaccination centre took me around 35 minutes.
The rest of the day, I enjoyed my Saturday evening at the movies and then having a nice dinner. And after an uneventful day, I decided to sleep early.
On 20th June 2021 (Day 2), I woke up very very early as I had a throbbing headache and even with a couple of paracetamol tablets, I was unable to sleep again. Therefore, I decided to take the day off and just rest as this was not the first time that I developed side effects after a vaccination shot.
In addition to the intensive headache, I also developed swelling on the injection site and it was uncomfortable as every time I brushed the arm with my hand it hurt.
I was able to rest on and off, as the headache lasted all day, therefore, I took a paracetamol tablet every 4 hours to control the headaches. After a restless long day, I was so tired and the headache was a bit milder that I was able to retire early to sleep.
On 21st June 2021 (Day 3), I woke up headache free and fresh as I was able to sleep all night without any problems. However, I realised that the swelling on the injection site was still there as it was a bit painful when I touched it.
I was able to have a normal day as I was headache free for the rest of the day. Although the swelling on the injection site was there, the pain did not spread around.
After an uneventful day, where my side effects were dissipating, I was able to retire early to sleep.
On 22nd June 2021 (Day 4), I woke up without any side effect and everything was back to normal.
Although, there were three days of side effects it was all worth it as I had 60% protection towards this infectious disease. Then, I only had to wait a further 8 weeks in order to have 100% protection, my heart was full with hope for a life without anxiety of going out.
Although, I developed some side effects, the list of side effects associated with Oxford-AstraZeneca is long. Therefore, I thought we should review them in order for you to be familiar with them. However, it is important to mention that if you developed severe side effect you should contact the NHS helpline (111) as soon as these symptoms developed.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca common side effects are vomiting, diarrhoea, swelling, redness of the injection site, and low levels of blood platelets which occurs in less than 1 in 10 people. The medium side effects are decreased appetite, dizziness, enlarged lymph nodes, sleepiness, sweating, abdominal pain, itching and rash which occurs in less than 1 in 100 people. Finally, the severe side effects are blood clots in combination with low levels of blood platelets which occurs in less 1 in 100,000 people, and anaphylaxis or other allergic reaction.
On 14th August 2021 (Day 1), finally after a wait of 8 weeks the day of the second vaccination dose arrived and I was ready for the process to continue. While booking my vaccination appointments, I was able to book the first appointment at ExCel, however, I needed to pick a new centre for the second appointment and I decided to pick Westfield Stratford Centre in order to make a day out of it.
After a nice breakfast, I left my house at 10.00 and I was ready for the vaccination. While I was at Westfield Stratford the previous week, I was able to find a vaccination centre so I was sure of the location.
I arrived to Westfield Stratford Centre at 10.15 and after a five-minute walk, I was on the vaccination centre queue. However, while I was on the queue a supervisor came to check all the booking reference. While I was there, the supervisor told me that this centre was meant for fist dose vaccination and the centre for the second dose was on the other side of the centre.
Therefore, I left the queue and then I walked towards the other centre and arrived within few minutes. On the other centre, the registration was at the entrance of the first queue. During the registration process, I gave my reference number and was able to verify all my details. After that, I was given a token with a legend “Clinic A”, then I realised that there were two queues which were divided into Clinic A and Clinic B.
After entering the Clinic A queue, I realised that most people were on the Clinic B queue. Therefore, I was the first on the line as soon as reached the end of the line. After less than a minute, I was inside the vaccination centre where I gave my token and they checked my body temperature with a wall scanner and sanitised my hands.
After all this, inside I saw that there were two waiting areas one per clinic. Therefore, I was escorted to the waiting area of Clinic A where I was seated on the first chair as this waiting area was empty.
After a very short wait at the waiting area, I was inside the vaccination pod. Inside, I was received by three people: one was doing the registration, one was asking all the pre-assessment questions, and finally the nurse was preparing the vaccination. Everything was happening so fast and while answering all the questions I realised that it took me only 5 minutes to enter the vaccination pod from the time I did the registration at the first queue.
When three people are doing the job in tandem, the process is superfast and while I was answering all the questions between the ones of the pre-assessment and the ones of the registration process, I decided to pick up some stickers which this time the legend was “I had my jab”.
After all the questions, I was ready to have my jab and this time I picked the left-side arm as they said on the first appointment that they recommended to pick a different arm per dose and the first dose was on the right-side arm.
After the vaccine, I left the vaccination pod and then the vaccination centre straight away as I did not have to drive myself. I was out of the vaccination centre at 10.40. The entire process from the time I arrived to the registration desk to the time I left the vaccination centre took me around 15 minutes, the difference this time was that since I had a reference number my process was faster than the ones just walking in.
Therefore, my recommendation is that you book your appointment prior to attending as this would make the process faster. I checked the appointment system and there were many appointments available on the same day. Therefore, you decided whether to queue for 30 minutes or take 5 minutes to book on the system and attend the same day and only waste 15 minutes.
After the vaccine, I spent the entire day at the Olympic Park and Westfield Stratford Centre in order to enjoy the sun and the outing.
After an amazing day, I returned home and decided after dinner to go sleep early as I knew that the following day would be rough as the last vaccination.
On 15th August 2021 (Day 2), I woke up very early as I had again a throbbing headache as I was unable to sleep. Therefore, I decided to take the day off and just rest as I developed side effects again after the vaccination shot.
In addition to the intensive headache, I also developed swelling on the injection site and it was uncomfortable as every time I brushed the arm with my hand. I rested all day as the headache was on and off as before. And after not sleeping well the previous day, I decided to take an early dinner and then tried to sleep again. However, this time although it was as before, I knew that these side effects would only last for a day.
On 15th August 2021 (Day 3), I woke up headache free and fresh as I was able to sleep all night without any problems. I only had a mild swelling on the injection site as it was a bit painful when I touched it.
I was able to have a normal day as I was headache free. Since other side effects were dissipating, I was able to retire early to sleep.
On 16th August 2021 (Day 4), I woke up again without any side effect and everything was back to normal.
Same as before, my side effect only lasted three day and now my protection requires a 2-week wait to reach 100%. These two weeks are required in order for our immune system to recognize the spike protein introduce by the vaccine and then created antibodies in order to protect us against the virus.
Although, after two weeks I would have 100% protection this means that if I get the disease, I would survive it, this does not mean that the vaccine is a cure. However, having the vaccine allows me to go out knowing that I have full protection to the disease and reduces my anxiety level every time I go out.
However, even with the vaccine and knowing that I could go out without facemask, I would continue using the facemask, the gloves and the eye protection every time to avoid the infection.
Therefore, my recommendations from this blog are two: first and most important is to get vaccinated as per all the current news, all the people in hospitals around the world are people without vaccination as the disease is very contagious. And finally, use the facemask to avoid the infection as the disease is still spreading around and if you are not careful with or without vaccination to may catch it.
Commentaires