I received my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine last week, and I am sighing with relief.
Because of a recent diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, which is linked to my case of COVID-19 last summer, I had to wait for my doctor to give me the okay to get the vaccine. Other than a sore arm, my first dose was a breeze.
Last July, most of my immediate family came down with the virus. Both my sisters, my brother-in-law, my nephew, and I all tested positive for the virus. Because my husband, Keith, and son, Dean, were exposed to me, we just assumed the two of them were infected as well, although neither showed any symptoms.
My sisters were sick. Stephanie lost around 25 pounds in two weeks and required two trips to the hospital to get treated for dehydration. Deana developed COVID pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital twice for treatment. My brother-in-law Bill and my nephew, Hunter, both had mild cases, and I suffered from sinus-like symptoms.
Since that time, Deana remains on oxygen with permanent lung damage and still has long-haul symptoms like joint pain and fatigue. Stephanie fared better, with only lingering back pain.
I recovered within 14 days, tested negative, and returned to work. It wasn’t until a few months later that I began having random pain in my joints and shortness of breath. My local physician ordered a number of tests to check my heart and other possible answers, but it wasn’t until April of this year that I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, an auto immune disease that can be triggered by the infection of any virus not just COVID-19. However, some medical studies have shown that due to COVID-19 causing an increase in inflammation in the body, rheumatoid arthritis can be induced.
Thankfully, I was diagnosed with the condition early, and medicine is available to limit the progression of the disease. However, this is diagnosis will affect me the rest of my life.
Because of the type of medicine I’m required to take regularly, I had to get approval from my physician to finally get the vaccine. As soon as I got the go-ahead, I got the shot the very next day.
Initially, because I had already contracted COVID-19, I thought antibodies from the virus would prevent me from being re-infected. Everything I had read about re-infections reported was that it was rare. However, with the delta variant, re-infection is happening more and more.
In fact, my sister Stephanie tested positive for the virus again a year for the second time. Thankfully, she had mild symptoms, more like that of the common cold.
But this led me to push even harder to get released for the vaccine. The medicine I am taking made it necessary for me to get my doctor’s approval, but rheumatoid arthritis itself puts me at a 25 percent higher risk of contracting the virus and getting really sick.
When school started last month and the number of cases of COVID spiked due to the highly-contagious delta variant, I was concerned. Medical professionals were comparing the rapid transmission of the delta variant to that of chicken pox. I remember when I was a child and before the chicken pox vaccine was available, chicken pox would spread through schools like wildfire.
In addition, symptoms of the delta variant strain of COVID is that of a basic cold. So when Dean came home from school with a headache and a nasal congestion, I rushed him to the doctor to get tested. He was negative, and well, not happy he had to get swabbed. However, I couldn’t run the risk of him getting the virus and unknowingly passing it on to someone else.
While he was at the doctor getting tested, my husband asked to have an antibody test. Now, I tested positive for COVID last summer. We assumed Keith and Dean all contracted the virus as well because social distancing is just not possible in our home or with a seven-year-old who felt it was his duty to become my caregiver when I was sick.
Keith tested negative for antibodies, so he never contracted the virus. That just amazed me! How fickle is this crazy virus?
How can one person in a household catch this highly-contagious virus and not spread it to someone sharing the same house? I contracted the virus from having a conversation with my sisters while sitting at the same table, but Keith didn’t contract it when he was sitting beside me on the same sofa.
There are so many unanswered questions about COVID-19. I think doctors will still be making new discoveries about it years from now.
There is something that is very clear. Thousands of new cases are being reported every day in the state of Mississippi. Many people are getting sick -- some seriously ill and requiring hospitalization. Others are dying from the virus. There is no rhyme or reason, age, or pre-existing health conditions that determine how the virus will affect a person. Yes, some are at higher risk, but now even children are becoming critically ill and some dying.
The complete randomness of it all is what is most frightening to me.
However, there are ways to protect yourself. Wearing masks, social distancing, washing your hands, and most importantly, getting vaccinated.
I understand that getting vaccinated is an important personal decision, and from someone who wasn’t cleared for the vaccine until recently, I recommend you talk to your doctor and follow his or her recommendations in making that decision. I am not a medical expert, therefore, I rely on the expertise of my own physician and those I knew personally who work to keep our local community healthy in deciding for myself how to proceed.
Recently, Dr. LouAnn Woodward, Dean of University of Mississippi Medical Center and native of Carroll County, issued a plea to the people of Mississippi.
Woodward isn’t a talking-head on the evening news. She isn’t a politician. She is leading Mississippi’s largest hospital through its most difficult season – a global pandemic. This new wave of COVID-19 has led UMMC to open two field hospitals in a parking garage to handle the volume of patients requiring hospitalization from the virus.
This is what she said:
“We as a state, as a collective, have failed to respond in a unified way to a common threat. We have failed to use the tools that we have to protect ourselves, to protect our families, to protect our children, and to protect our state.
We have an effective and available, a safe, and a free vaccine that we are not using to its fullest capacity. This time last year in press conferences, we all talked about, ‘Boy, if we can just get to that place where we’ve got a vaccine, we’ll get on the other side of this.’ What I have to say to the citizens of Mississippi is we have that vaccine, we have that tool. And we have not appropriately and fully used it. This where we are. We do not have to be here, but this is where we are.
Our healthcare workforce all across the state is traumatized. We are in trouble. I implore you, if you have not yet gotten vaccinated, please do so right away. It is the right thing to do for yourself, for your family, for our children all across the state of Mississippi, and for the future of our state.
We do not need any mandates to do the right thing. This is a decision each individual can make.
I have spent a lot of time over these last years defending Mississippi to colleagues across the country. And I have done that with great pride. I love this place. This is my home. I’m proud of Mississippi. But our actions this last year are not easy to defend….
We are not out of this. In order for October and November to look different than August looks and the way that September will look, we have to do something. And what that is: We have to get vaccinated. Wear masks, get vaccinated. Let’s be responsible for ourselves and to each other.”
