Mondays with Mike: Innoculation Woodstock

On this date last year, Illinois Governor Pritzker ordered all bars and restaurants closed as of March 17 until …  March 30. On March 17, I walked across the street to our polling place and voted in the Illinois primary.

Needlefest!

Then I went home to get back to work, when working from home was still kind of novel. About 2 p.m. I started feeling a little off—it felt like the beginning of a cold. At around 4:00 p.m. I was struck by the worst case of the chills I’ve ever had. They were positively convulsive and I could not get warm.

This wasn’t a cold.

Badness ensued. After passing out walking out of the bedroom to get a banana, I hit my head hard enough to be unconscious for what Beth described as maybe 30 seconds. On March 26 I entered the hospital—I was there for a week followed by three days of confinement in my room at a City of Chicago COVID quarantine hotel. I was deemed safe to go home on April 4.

All the details, outlined in an earlier post, kind of rolled back into my consciousness last week. That’s the bad news. The good news was the trigger: Beth and I went to the United Center vaccination site last Wednesday and got our first shots.

We were a little trepidatious: Going to a big gathering place seemed shaky. And our appointments were on the first full day of operation. The previous day was a sort of soft launch, and there were reports of long waits and confusion. We were prepared for the worst.

We needn’t have worried. We took a cab, got out, followed clear signs to a giant tent. Lots of people, but all masked and distanced. National Guard members everywhere, answering questions, helping people to their next processing station.

And a palpable sense of gratitude, relief, and of yes, joy. It was inoculation Woodstock. After months of being apart and understanding ourselves as a threat to others and threatened by others, people were together, and glad of it.

At our first stop a young Guard member took our tickets, scanned them, asked us a bunch of health questions, and then paused to ask me, “Are you planning on getting pregnant?”

“That’s always the icebreaker for nervous people,” he said.

We had a laugh. Beth had brought Luna, and he commented on how good she was. “I miss my Cocker Spaniel back home,” he said.

I asked where home was.

“Indianapolis, so not all that far.”

When Beth thanked him for doing what he was doing, he said, “When I raised my right hand and took the oath, I signed up for this—whether it’s here or overseas.” He gave us clear instructions about the next step, We said goodbye and checked in at another table.

We were directed to a distanced line. There were rows of distance, tables. Behind each was a uniformed, masked Guardsman (or woman) and a bunch of hypodermic needles and other supplies.

I thought about where I was just about a year before. I looked around and took it all in. I didn’t have a dry eye the rest of the time.

Beth got the first opening and had her shot in no time. I followed and barely felt a thing. We thanked our injector and moved on to a space where we would wait fifteen minutes to make sure we didn’t have a reaction.

The eavesdropping was great. Person after person profusely, sincerely thanking the Guard and the volunteers and staff. One of the Guards responded to a woman who thanked him by saying, “You don’t need to thank us, we’re having a ball!” People were happy! And they were together! At an event!

OK, it wasn’t exactly Lollapalooza (thank goodness), but it very much was a performance.

A really good one. I give it five stars.