On the day of the vaccine, I woke up as any other day, with barely enough sleep to get through the day. However, I was running a bit late and skipped breakfast, which was admittedly my second mistake after not getting a full night’s rest. My third mistake was biking to the vaccine site very underdressed for the weather. My final mistake was not realizing there was an English version of the health form, and after 10 minutes of struggling to fill out this form, I went through the process of getting the vaccine. Everyone greeted me with a smile and was very friendly, engaging in football related conversations because I was wearing my PSV jersey. After filling out the form, everything went really smoothly and I left the premises within 20 minutes.

Upon reaching home, I got back to doing some work for some group projects. However, after approximately two hours, I felt a sudden fatigue and the need to sleep, I fought the urge as long as I could, but wound up taking a ‘nap’ for about 7 hours. I woke up with an intense body pain and headache, but it was dinner time and I had to eat something. So I got up and made something quickly because I couldn’t stay upright for too long due to the body pain and fatigue. At this point I knew any attempt at productivity would be futile, so I just tried to rest as much as I could. Consequently, this column was submitted a bit later than initially intended. These symptoms persisted until the following night. To my dismay, I am unable to take pills, so I couldn’t take painkillers to help me get through the pain. On the bright side, I had slept more in those two days than the entire week prior.

It came as a surprise to me that the symptoms hit that hard. Because for the two doses prior, I had no symptoms at all, and just went about my days like I normally would and coincidentally being even more active on the days of receiving the vaccine. So I started thinking about the differences between my state of being when I got the first two doses compared to now in hopes that it would help someone else have a better experience with the booster shot. At the time of my first two doses, I was in St. Maarten with my parents who made sure that I ate three meals per day and maintained a pretty healthy lifestyle. Essentially eating well, being active, and sleeping at normal times. As opposed to this past week where I was eating once or twice a day because I was too busy to cook and sleeping very scarcely at extremely odd hours.

All in all, I am still extremely grateful to have received the booster shot. I’m sure by the time this column is published I’ll feel much better, but the positive effects of the booster shot will stick around for much longer. I’m sure a lot of the readers have already received the booster shot or are planning to get it soon, I hope that my experience could better prepare the ones who haven’t received it yet.