One week with covid… vaccine

One week with covid… vaccine

It was Tuesday last week that I was compelled to take the Oxford University’s Astra Zeneca production of corona virus vaccine.  This vaccine is meant to prevent infection or lessen the effects of infections if it occurs.  This Tuesday jab was however just the start of the journey.  Every person who gets a first jab needs a second one, four to eight weeks later, for the dose of this AZ vaccine to be complete.  

Nonetheless this is probably the norm.  Of the WHO approved vaccines, all but one are two jab administered – be it AZ, Pfizer-Biontech or Moderna.  Only Johnson & Johnson’s Jenssen vaccine is a one shot vaccine… and it has just suffered temporary stoppage where it is chiefly administered in the US, after cases of blood clots were reported amongst a few… one in a million I believe.  We already knew about blood clot issues with AZ vaccine even as we accepted to have it last week.  It is a risk worth taking.  As the scientists say, the benefits far outweigh the risks. 

I had read on our marathoners’ discussion page on WhatsApp that one ‘goes down’ after taking the vaccine.  That runner even confessed that he could hardly run after being vaccinated with the AZ jab, about two weeks prior.  He said that he was ‘forced’ to take a one-week break.  I was therefore expecting something to ‘go down’ after that Tuesday experience.  The jab experience was painless and uneventful (read the full story here).  I nonetheless still decided to deliberately monitor the effects of the vaccine in my system, by virtue of taking notes on a daily basis as to how things shall ‘go down’.  And this is it….

With Tuesday as Day 1, the vaccination day, I was on the lookout for anything unusual on Day 2, a Wednesday, since I felt nothing at all on that Tuesday.  I did not do any runs on this Wednesday, since I do my runs only once a week, on Mondays.  I felt nothing different on this Day 2.  I would later in the day have one episode of running nose, where I had the urge to clear my nose at least once or twice, but that was it.  This was an episode from nowhere, but it was a brief five-minute thing in the evening and it was gone forever thereafter.  Maybe it was nothing to do with the vaccine.

My Day 3 was another normal day.  I woke up in the morning and did my daily chores as expected.  There was nothing worthy of mentioning as far as change of health was concerned.  I would later in the evening had a brief dry cough for about five minutes.  The type where the throat just irritates leading to a cough.  This was also brief and was soon gone.  I continued and ended my day without any more feeling of any body effects.

And that was probably it, since my Day 4 was quite normal.  I did my usual daily activities and felt nothing out of the usual.  Day 5 was a Saturday and it did not start with my usual self.  I woke up unusually tired, for no reason that I could think of, since I had not done any strenuous activity or even did a run the previous day.  My walk from home to the workplace, a distance of about 3km using a longer route, was a bit laboured.  However, I was back to my normal self soon after that lethargic walk.  I was back to full energy and the tiredness was gone never to be felt again on that day.

Day 6 was a Sunday and it turned out to be the most normal Sunday.  I was my usual self.  I did walk around and did not feel anything abnormal.  The real test would however be on Day 7, when I would have to face the usual weekly run.  I felt good through the day and was quite ready for the evening run even as I started off the run at 4pm.  The run on the usual Uthiru-Gitaru route was just another one of those routine runs.  There was nothing different.  

Running tends to be tideous, and so I was tired as usual, as I pounded the tarmac.  I cannot say that I felt any different than last run.  If anything, the tiredness that I felt during the last run was worse that I felt on this Monday.  That would mean that this Monday’s run was just usual, with the usual tiredness.  I finished the 27k in 2hr 25min.  That 5min 21sec average time for kilometre, is the very same average that I did during the last run.  That would mean that my run pace had not deteriorated after that jab.  I was surely still the same old me.

All could have ended well on that Day 7, until my stomach become the running type in the early evening after dinner.  I did not know whether to attribute this to the refrigerated food or to any other cause.  Apart from that, I was still normal with the residual tiredness of the run.  Nonetheless, I was back to 100% normal as I woke up on Day 8, today Tuesday.  I have been well without any pains or discomfort since morning.  

Even as the total corona infections* globally now hit a high of 137,834,958 with 2,965,968 deaths and 110,837,950 recoveries, with Kenyan numbers being 147,147; 2,394 and 99,580 respectively.  Even as the debate on whether to take the vaccine or not take the vaccine continues.  My own experience tells me that the AZ vaccine has no adverse effect at all on the human body after vaccine, at least the first jab.  It is a shot on the arm like any other… and then you forget that it ever happened.  Maybe the shot number two of June 1 will have its own story?

*source: worldometers

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, April 13, 2021