Someone Got His Flu Shot Today
Posted on October 7, 2021 Posted by John Scalzi 33 Comments
Spoiler: It was me. They were having a little clinic at our local library, so it was convenient to do. The shot itself was painless, and now I’ll have a day or so of feeling vaguely crappy and then I’ll hopefully be substantially flu-resistant through the end of the flu season. Also, in an era where I would have to ask myself “is this flu or is this COVID?” it’s nice to have a significantly reduced chance of getting either (and if I do get either, less chance of being really messed up from them).
Naturally, I suggest you get your flu shot as well, for all the reasons I note above, plus you’ll decrease the likelihood of someone who legitimately can’t get a vaccination getting sick from whichever flu will be going around this season. Why not be a nice person to others, as well as keeping yourself from being gut-wrenchingly ill? It’s a win for everyone!
— JS
Got mine on Tuesday and the most painful part so far has been trying to remove the darn Band-Aid.
Ditto! I got flu vaccine this morning and am happy I did. Totally worth it!
That is an awesome pic that needs to go viral.
Martin’s Point, my Primary Care Provider, got theirs in early this year, in August. Because of a severe head trauma four years ago, I see my PCP once a month, so I got mine on my monthly visit there then. I don’t get any reaction at all to any vaccination that I get.
By the way, I encountered my first breakthrough case of Covid-19. I was supposed to see a vascular surgeon yesterday to get cleared for shoulder surgery but he got Covid-19! We ended up doing it by phone. (I was cleared.)
I tried to get mine today, but our local Walgreens has gone from walk-in flu shots to needing an appointment.
So it’ll be a couple of weeks–probably get my Pfizer booster shot at the same time.
I have never actually gotten a flu shot, but I think I actually will this year. I have every other vaccination that is normal for people my age, including Covid, but have been stuck on advice my physician-father gave me years ago. He didn’t recommend the flu vaccine for healthy young people. Problem is that Mr. Scalzi and I are approximately the same age so I am no longer young by any characterization, and I have diabetes and hypertension so I am no longer healthy either. Guess it is time.
As a side note does anyone want a kitten? A friend rescued him from the road in front of her house and then got Covid (yes she was vaccinated) so kitten ended up at my house and I don’t have the heart to take him to the humane society, but don’t really want a kitten right now. I will offer to cover vet bills until kitten is 1 year old as long as you agree to have him neutered.
https://imgur.com/a/OasumBc
Got mine on Monday. Thanks for the encouragement to everybody. Covid booster in a couple weeks. I get sore arms from this and have to sleep on my other side. Small price, very tiny in fact.
I received my flu shot and my third COVID shot as I am over the magic 65 year old cut off. No ill results from either except for a couple of sore arms. Let’s do this folks!
Thanks for using your platform, John, to urge these socially responsible behaviors.
I’ve had a flu shot three times in the last maybe 20,years and those were the only times I ever got the flu. Since then, no shot, no flu, but I’m weirdly immunocompromised and don’t recommend my resistance to the flu vaccine to everyone. My wife always gets her flu shot and other than a sore arm, she’s always good and never gets the flu.
Although I am 65, because I had cancer within the last year I qualified for a Covid booster shot a month before everyone else my age and had that early last month.
I haven’t read anything about carrying a 300mm lens around like a wartime photojournalist giving one any extra protection but if that helps, I can certainly do that too! 😆 Stay healthy, Scalzi!
I get my flu shot around the beginning of October every year. Although I no longer work in a high school around snotty-nosed kids all day long, I do volunteer as a robotics coach at said high school, and therefore still need to protect myself from those same snotty-nosed kids. I have been so good at protecting myself from snotty-nosed kids that when I retired three years ago I had over 200 unused sick days that I traded in.
I also got my Pfizer booster shot last week. No side effects – not even a sore arm. As was my reaction to the first two doses.
I LIKE vaccinations!
Hooray!!! Got mine a few days ago!
Flu shot last week, covid booster this week (as soon as I hit the six month mark). I have rarely had bad reactions to vaccines–the worst was to a cholera vaccine, some 40 years or so ago–but I’ve gotten a flu shot every year for the last 20-30. I’m a teacher. I watched the flu run through my classes like plague every fall . . . and I lived (for most of that time) with someone who might very well have died if I had brought the flu home. Everyone in my household got flu shots, every year.
Yes, I believe in vaccines. All of them
I always look away when I get my shot. But last year, in order to report back to a friend, I watched. The hurt was easily bearable and instantly forgotten.
My covid shot didn’t hurt at all.
Work isn’t offering the flu shot until 10/12/21, so I will probably get it after that. Do not want to have to wonder “is it Covid or is it the flu?” Having actually had the real flu–once–I’d rather not repeat. Already fully Covid vaxxed, now trying to figure out when & where I can get the booster, which I will need in November. Some shots work better than others, the flu shot is variable. Happy to say that the Covid 19 vaccination has kept me & the cats safe so far. A friend was vaccinated for Covid 19, got a breakthrough case (he teaches, so…) but he said it wasn’t bad. The Covid vaccination WORKS.
Dude, its a gun show!
I also got my flu shot today! I am a public-facing librarian and the town’s department of public health is very on the ball about getting employees vaccinated, and today was vaccine day.
Thank you for reminding me!
I keep forgetting to go the drugstore and get mine….
Michael Kelley: “advice my physician-father gave me years ago. He didn’t recommend the flu vaccine for healthy young people.”
Time was, there was a very limited supply of the flu vaccine every year, and healthy young people getting it did actually reduce the supply available for those most at risk from a severe case. I never got a flu shot back then. I have an impression that it was about the time of H1N1 that manufacture was increased and we started thinking about reducing spread as well as just having vulnerable people protect themselves individually with the vaccine.
H1N1 was especially severe for young adults, and I’m an after-school tutor. I started getting my flu shot when it hit me that I was a potential vector, especially since I work with kids from different school districts. Time to see what my local CVS is doing about walk-in vs appointments!
“I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did he fill up his SD card or not’? Well to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself. But being that, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well do ya, punk?”
I got my flu shot today as well. It seems to be that time. (I also scheduled my COVID booster.) I agree with Zelda that the thinking on flu shots has changed and it’s now considered wise to get as many people as possible to take them. Interestingly, influenza immunizations appear to reduce all-cause winter mortality (not just deaths directly attributable to influenza, but cardiovascular events and the like).
Also, it seems like every year I run into people who still think the flu shot doesn’t work because they got so-called “stomach flu” afterward. Probably none of y’all need telling this, but stomach flu is NOT INFLUENZA, which is primarily a respiratory disease.
Ditto for mine yesterday here in the UK.
But you got a bandaid?
It was in/jab/out of the door
– I didn’t have time to feel a thing.
Next year I feel we will be on conveyor belts
in an old ford factory, with the robots doing the jabs.
Might actually be a good idea…
Slightly off-topic but it needs to be said, so why not here?
If you are eligible and haven’t done so, PLEASE get the Shingles vaccine. Believe me people, you do NOT want to get it.
/end unsolicited but heartfelt advice
We got our Pfizer boosters last week and will get our flu shots next week.
So, any signs of mutation yet? Sudden desire to join the Communist Party? Urge to spend, Spend!, SPEND!!!?
Just asking….
Scheduled for a double shot this morning: seasonal flu and Covid-19 booster. Probably feel double crappy for a couple of days.
Got my flu shot last week. Not eligible for a Covid-19 booster since I got the Moderna vaccine. I get a flu shot every year (diabetic, mild asthma, don’t want to eff around with it) and can’t remember the last time I had flu. My husband had it a couple of years ago despite being vaccinated. It hit like a ton of bricks. I took him to the doctor because he was too sick to drive. They prescribed Tamiflu and he bounced back in a couple of days. Amazing.
I need to get that done. But at least I’m triple covid vaxxed.
Michael Kelley: I didn’t get the flu shot either, until I was about your age and started getting the bodily misfunctions of aging. My doctor recommended it at that point specifically, so please go get yours.
Got mine last week. Along with a pneumonia shot. A friend got the flu already, passed out, fell, and blackened both her eyes. I get mine every year, but this spurred me to get it immediately.
I didn’t feel any effects at all, so you may not feel crappy.
Thanks for the reminder. I ran over to the work clinic to get mine just now. We are required to get the Flu shot here – work on a Medical School Campus.
I got it at the same time as my Covid booster.
I suggest everyone avoid doing that.
Got my flu shot a couple weeks ago. Strangely, this year there wasn’t even any soreness from it worth mentioning.
Got my first shingles vaccine the year I turned 50, but I wasn’t able to get the second shot until about a year later, because three months later I couldn’t find anybody who had one. According to what I looked up online, that was okay and I didn’t need to get a third one.
I didn’t get the annual flu either until ’91 when I got the flu, not just a bad cold that knocked me on my back with a temperature, elevated heartbeat, and worst of all knocked me out of a running series that I thought I had a chance to win.
Since then I’ve taken the flu shot every year. And even years when they totally miss it, I have dodged the flu.
BTW I also got the flu shot Thursday.
Yesterday was the free flu shot clinic at work, so I’m set. Had to leave the bandage on longer than normal because the nurse hit a blood vessel and I was leaking a bit, but that was pretty much it for side effects.
I’m too young for a Covid booster under current guidelines. If that changes, I’ll get one. I work for a dry cleaner, which means I get exposed to every bodily discharge that can stick to/be absorbed by fabric on a regular basis.