Double Vaccination

 Back in mid October or so I got a message from my primary care centre about booking time for the seasonal flu vaccionation + a booster dose of updated covid vaccine. The premises across town where they used to coordinate all vaccinations during the pandemic were closed after last year's flu season; and this year they are instead using premises in close connection to my primary care centre in the town centre (within walking distance for me). It seemed they were keeping the same time booking system as during the pandemic though, and as it worked fairly smoothly back then, I expected it to still do so now, even if in another place. So I booked myself in on the first day available (=today), at 2:10 pm, to get it over with. 

It was raining in the morning, but the rain stopped around noon, and I went for a 20 min walk into town, arriving at the health centre ten minutes before my allotted time. There was no queue outside - "so far, so good"... BUT when I got inside, I found the waiting room absolutely crowded, and chaos seemed to reign... The poor nurses at the reception desk kept explaining that somehow too many patients had been booked into each time slot, so they were running behind... And we were all told to "sit down and wait", even though there clearly weren't enough seats for that... Most of us were over retirement age and there were also quite a few people in need of canes, crutches, walkers or wheelchairs + someone to accompany them. The registration process did not seem optimised to run smoothly either. The nurses on duty were no doubt doing their best under the circumstances - I'd say the fault was in the overall planning... (And I have to say that did surprise me, considering all the experience they ought to have gathered from organizing things during the pandemic!)

 

The main difference between the (AI generated) image above and today is that I think I was the only (!!) person in the room actually wearing a face mask. I'm not really fanatic about that in most contexts now - but as soon as I saw how crowded the waiting room was, I immediately chose to put one on (I had one with me). They also had some at the reception desk, but no one was told/asked to wear them (as we always were during the pandemic), and I saw no one else using one! - neither staff nor patients.

 

While I was booked for 2:10, I had to wait until nearly 3 o'clock until it was my turn. I found an empty chair after a while though (and even a bit to the side), so at least didn't have to stand the whole time. 

 

Once I got into the nurse's cubicle (I think they had three of them) the actual procedure of getting my two injections went smoothly, though. I've never had both vaccines at the same time before, but I got one in each arm this time. 

 

 

I did not manage to get AI to draw exactly the image I had in mind (an octupus injecting itself) but I kind of like the facial expressions on these two above... ;)

 

Just after 3 pm I was out of the chaos; and as it was still not raining, I had another fairly pleasant 20 min walk back home - where I settled down with a cup of tea and a piece of cake in front of the TV to relax for a while... Phew!

 

Remains to be seen how I'll be feeling tomorrow, having had both vaccines at the same time. I have absolutely nothing planned for tomorrow except a day of rest, though! On Thursday I have the laundry room again; but I can move that booking if I don't feel up for it. And on Friday I have a delivery of groceries coming, but I don't have to go anywhere.