I might have been the first regular poster to get the vaccine. I had the first dose of Pfizer vaccine in December and the second in January this year.

I'm a school nurse so getting exposed is inevitable despite my mask wearing best efforts.

I've heard good arguments against offering boosters, but I was/am going to take one if it's offered.

People who think not offering boosters is an effective way to get people in Africa vaccinated are having more brain fog than I am.

We have to do both. Protect the health care workers at the very least.

Many of my daughter's nurse coworkers won't vaccinate due to the unfounded fear of infertility. That's sad.

My daughter's vaccines were both in December of 2020. Her fiancé's vaccines were given the same days. She's a nurse as well.

Imagine half of the nurses out ill. It doesn't take much imagination.

I'm pretty healthy and I'll be okay. It's the neurological effects that I worried about and, yeah, I have them.

I'll accept advice. :) :) :)

Oh, wow. Dorothy, I am so sorry. I hope that you have a mild illness and make a good recovery.

I'm about a month behind you in terms of vaccination. Supposedly I shouldn't get the booster until late October, but I want it ASAP. I spent this past week back in school, setting up my classroom and attending meetings. My coworkers are supposed to be masked unless they are eating, but many are sloppy about it. We will have a full complement of students, who will also be masked, but as with you, I have to wonder if it will be a matter of time.

What exactly are your neurological effects? Do you have any other symptoms? What alerted you that you might be positive?

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What alerted you that you
> might be positive?

Good question, summer.

Oh, Dorothy, I'm so sorry. Glad to hear the symptoms have been mild other than the neuro, it sounds like?

For those who think a fully vaccinated person contracting the virus is proof the vaccine doesn't work (unfortunately, many have this opinion, despite no training in medicine or bio sciences) it's exactly the opposite. It is well known and publicized and explained that even those who have been vaccinated can still get sick from COVID-19 (that's how virulent it is) but that most of them will have a milder disease course than they might have otherwise. The stats, at least here in Canada, are clearly showing that the overwhelming majority of deaths from COVID are occurring in unvaccinated people.

One of the foremost goals, as has been stated here often, was always, from the beginning, to avoid overwhelming ERs and ICUs with COVID-19 patients, who need critical care and so much of it, such that every other person needing even urgent care can't access it.

Another goal was to minimize the effects of the virus in those who contract it, which indeed is occurring as most vaccinated people who get CV report only mild illness.

Also part of the plan from the get-go was to protect medical staff.

These goals are being met better than if the virus had been rampaging the earth attacking an entirely unvaccinated world population.

As for your mention of loosey-goosey masking, Dorothy, yes, I notice that too. People push their mask down off their noses and wander around thinking they're safe and keeping others safe too. Or wear the little thin paper ones that gape at the top and sides - it's not really doing the job of sealing in your breath and sealing out others'. As for hand sanitation, it seems 110% of people have forgotten the early instruction to avoid touching the front of your mask. This is hard to do if you keep pulling it down and pushing it up and adjusting it from the front. I see many who take it off from the front (thereby contaminating their hands with any virus particles that may be on it), stuff it in their pocket, and then fish it out to put it on sometime later, again touching the front of it (which should always be considered to be contaminated) in order to adjust it on their face.

That is why your hands too should be regularly washed/sanitized because they have to be considered contaminated and why MDs often remind us not to touch our faces and especially our eyes/nose/mouth as they are portals of entry for any germs going.

I well realize that Dorothy knows all this. I'm just summarizing it again to hopefully forestall those who think Dorothy contracting the virus after being vaccinated is a reason to denounce the vaccines. Rather, it's a reminder that it's the vaccine PLUS the oft-repeated other precautions (correct mask-wearing and regular handwashing) that are the ways in which we can try to avoid contracting COVID. And the operative word is 'try'. I have never heard an expert in science, medicine or virology and other associated specialties claim that these measures are foolproof. It helps to keep in mind what the objectives are (avoiding overwhelming critical care spaces, minimizing the numbers of people who contract the virus, decreasing numbers of infections or minimizing its effects if it occurs). Nobody ever said the vaccines are a panacea or that the masks are the be-all/end-all. Just tools to try and meet the objectives I mentioned, and other related ones.

Too, as Dorothy said, she's in a high-risk category, not only being a nurse but a school nurse, kind of a double-whammy, as that is a much higher risk vocation and environment.

I hope for a speedy, uneventful recovery for you, Dorothy, with no lasting sequelae. Please keep checking in with us as we'll be thinking of you.

Dorothy, do have have anyone who is helping you ?

I am so sorry, Dorothy.

I hope you get through this as easily, as smoothly, and as safely as is possible.

I understand what you are saying about less than recommended masking in a work environment because it is one of the main things we are concerned with on every work day around here. Although many people may technically be "wearing a mask," the WAY they are wearing that mask is definitely not safe for anyone (including themselves), and we are definitely vulnerable.

I will be thinking about you every day.

I am sorry.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/infectious-disease-expert-americans-must-184335144.html

This may help put things into perspective.

Good article. Important points. Thank you.

Thanks everyone.

I was really sick last week. Sore throat like I've never had as an adult. 102.4. Rotten cough. My rapid test was negative.

I went to a provider who said it was sinusitis. Which it was, but that was an outcome, not the reason.

Earlier this week, I noticed that A) I was still feeling crummy and B) my food was smelling funky.

I do rapid Covid tests in my health office. I swabbed my nose yesterday--positive. The brain fog is obvious.

Was it all the same illness and the negative was a miss? Was it back to back illnesses? I'll never know.

I'm amazed that the management has no plan for how to staff the health offices in the event of multiple nurse illnesses.

All of my students are 12 and under and cannot be vaccinated.

FDA--get BRAVE--release the vaccine for children. Cover their butts instead of your own.

I'll be okay. The vaccine did its job of keeping me out of the hospital. I'm 58 and in good health. I hope to stay that way.

I've had lots of genuine offers of help. My Mormon friend was bursting with desire to assist me. She's so very Mormon and it makes me smile.

Back in February, with my shiny new vaccines, I took my ex-husband to the hospital for COVID 19 pneumonia. I brought him to his home five days later. He owes me. haha

He'll bring me supplies.

I'm lucky in many ways.

Stay safe.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2021 07:18PM by Dorothy.

I just want to say that this is a very logical, disciplined, responsible way to deal with what for most people would be a terrifying ordeal. Your students are fortunate to have a nurse who thinks so clearly even in a brain fog!

Wishing you the best for a speedy and full recovery.

I have been told taking vitamins C, D and zinc are important in preventing and then curing covid.

Also, the normal ---- stay hydrated, get plenty of rest, and over the counter meds to counter the 'symptoms'.

Good luck!

Well CRAP! I am sorry :(. Rest rest rest then rest some more. Find something mindless on TV and have a good binge. A little original Magnum PI maybe? And do check in! There will be many here that will want to know how you are getting on.
{hugz}

Sorry to hear about your catching Covid-19 Dorothy. You said that you are having neurological affects and that you are accepting advice.

The most freightening affects of having Covid-19 for me was the mental fog and one other neurological affect that I find difficult to describe. But I will try describe it here for anyone who may recognize my description and not know what to do about it. I did find something that helped with both of these symptoms. Other than these two symptoms which I had never experienced before, Covid-19 for me was more like a bad cold/pneumonia, both of which I had experienced before to a lesser degree and recognized.

The neurological symptoms that I find difficult to describe was like a combination of many things, none of which by themselves, describes the symptom completely accurately. If you've ever stayed awake for two or three days with no sleep at all, you'll remember that it became very difficult to remember anything, even for short periods while you are sleep-deprived. Your awareness of things around you diminishes, and your ability to process even simple thoughts becomes very difficult. If someone gave you a shopping list of three things (I didn't actually go shopping during this time), you might remember the first item on the list for a few seconds. A few seconds later you might forget what you were doing before they gave you the list. Then you would forget that first item from the list. You suddenly start feeling afraid when you realize that you are vulnerable when you realize that you can't reliably make critical decisions, maybe even to save your own life if the disease requires you to take critical actions that you may not be capable of comprehending by the time the disease gets worse. For me, this was what the mental confusion part of the disease was like. Although I used sleep deprivation as a part of the example, but unlike sleep derivation, there were no hallucinations, just a big dumbing-down of the brain's ability to process thoughts.

The other neurological symptom was like a combination of several things. Most notable was mental agitation. You do not know why, but a specific part of the brain seems to never sleep, no matter how many hours a day you actually do sleep. Whether awake or asleep, the mental agitation persists. When you are sleeping, it's like trying to sleep half-concious through a severe fever. Except that my Covid-19 fevers only lasted for a few days. This weird neurological symptom lasted for more than two weeks. But this agitation keeps you partially awake in a sence (even when you are otherwise in a deep sleep), all of the time. If you've ever had a night where you had the same dream all Night long over and over continuously, it's somewhat like that. Except the dream has no meaning and you can't remember what the dream was about when you wake up. But you remember the constant agitation which never stops. It's like someone has been knocking on your door all night long. It's mentally painful. But it all happens while you're in a deep sleep, which is deep except for this mental agitation that never goes away, even when you are completely unconscious. The pain is psychological and not like a physical headache. When you wake up this agitation is still there. You know that going to sleep again isn't going to make it go away. I slept all night and most of the day every day, except when eating something or soaking in the tub. For me, there were over two weeks of enduring a painful psychological state.

Fortunately, I discovered that ordinary aspirin mitigated (but did not completely get rid of) this symptom when it was at its worst. Near the end of the disease, if I stayed on aspirin all of the time, this symptom disappeared completely for as long as I was on the aspirin. I balanced my need for a feeling of psychologic well-being, against the real possibility that too much aspirin can cause stomach ulcers. But for a short period of a few days, I stayed on the aspirin at ordinarily unsustainable levels, just enough to feel better, knowing that that level of aspirin intake was temporary. I didn't exceed the directions on the bottle by very much for very long. I have also heard since then, from other sources that blood thinners can help to midigate the effects of the disease. Other than aspirin, I didn't have access to other blood thinners. But I did fill the bath tub with the hottest water I could tolerate four to five times every day and sit in it each time until the water started cooling off, each time. That also helped with the body chills and the mental agitation and confusion.


Hopefully this information helps someone else here.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2021 12:11AM by azsteve.

Your ordeal sounds much worse than mine. I haven't taken an aspirin in decades, but I'm going to have one of the people who have offered to help bring me some aspirin.

A blood thinner makes sense.

Thanks for sharing your experience and advice.

Good Luck :)

Feel better soon!

I am not as concerned about so many non-vaccinated nurses being out of work. I am severely concerned that nurses choose not to be vaccinated and work around people and expose already sick people with the disease.

IMHO if you work in health care you protect others from disease. There are nursing positions that do not work with the public. Such on phone in nurses. Let the unvaccinated work those jobs.

I always thought healthcare was based on science. If you don’t believe in science find another job. Ok off my soapbox.

Even vaccinated nurses are having breakthrough infections--like me.

We need hospital nurses. We could have a lot more that are willing to do that very difficult work if we called out the hospital management for chronic understaffing. The motive for chronic understaffing is not a shortage. That's a myth.

It's greed.

I don't know what to say about nurses who won't get vaccinated. They are humans with fear. And we need them. If they all left the bedside, we'd be in a world of hurt.

Three hours ago I got a text message from my daughter.
Her best friends mother died this morning. She was a surgical assistant. She worked last Friday, and died this morning from Covid.

This shit ain't playing. I'm vaccinated, but have had Covid twice. The first time I contracted it in the hospital. January 2020. I got it again in April after being vaccinated. Someone who KNEW they were sick came to my house to see my husband. I didn't even know he'd been there! Hubby caught it and unintentionally gave it to me.

I still have a chronic cough. I've lost about 2/3 of my hair. I'm having vision problems and most certainly brain fog that seldom lifts.

I am so sorry to hear this Pearlyeverlasting. What a selfish thing that guy did exposing you. I would be beyond furious. I hope they continue to research "long haul" and that you can find a group of those in the same boat to help you keep on top of developments and understand. We can and do empathize but I bet it would be great to have input from others in that same boat. I did a quick look for Covid long haul support groups and there seem to be quite a few.

I am pulling for you :) !

So sorry to hear about the ongoing effects. Hair loss sounds like a small thing. It's not.

Sending peaceful wishes.