Winning the Lottery

The system in Sarasota County for Covid vaccine distribution is quite bizarre, with tickets being made available on Eventbrite in small groups and selling out in seconds. Last Sunday, 800 tickets were going on at 3:30 in the afternoon. I signed on to the Department of Health site for the first time to check it out, and 60 seconds later I got a ticket and printed it out for the next day. So I went last Monday, got the Moderna vaccine, and returned home. I cleared my calendar for a few days in case I had side effects.

As it turns out, there were 167,000 people signed on at the same time for one of those 800 vaccines!!! It was in all the press. And I had no side effects whatsoever. Not even a sore arm. I feel like I won the lottery. I have my second shot in three weeks and I will be a huge step closer to life returning to normal. And my daughter should be receiving hers in Virginia any day.

I may have to start playing the Florida lottery.

P.S. Two important tips to help avoid side effects after the vaccine.

1. Drink plenty of water starting immediately after the injection for several days.

2. Move you arm around immediately to increase blood flow and oxygen to the muscle. They will likely not tell you this. I ended up teaching 50 strangers in recovery how to do this - raise you arm and do big circles - I did this in the 15 minute recovery period and every few minutes for several hours and had ZERO redness, inflammation or soreness, and the vast majority of people do.