Back from the dead

After the covid shot on Friday, I had expected life to continue just so.  Instead, it seemed to end.  I spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday largely incapacitated, entirely out of energy and in increasing discomfort.  I was lying haplessly on the sofa and in bed most of the time.  I thought the end was nigh.

Since I had stitches and occasional other pain from where lung and liver are, I didn’t blame any of what bothered me on the vaccine.  I had read that I should expect a bit of fever, maybe chills, consistent with the immune system working hard to turn a few molecules of RNA into antibodies against the coronavirus spike protein.  There was a bit of that but not much.  With pain coming from lung and liver, my explanation of why I felt so shitty was that the current chemotherapy wasn’t working, and that the cancer was growing out of control.  Not a nice thing to consider.

Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night.  This has become normal recently.  I wake up, turn from one side to the other, and go back to sleep.  Sometimes I get up.  This time, I did.  I had a bit of water and went back to bed, but I couldn’t fall back asleep.  My back hurt in a way that I couldn’t suppress no matter how I positioned myself in bed.  Getting increasingly frustrated with my body, I did something I normally don’t do.  I popped an ibuprofen.

Whether because of the drug or the placebo effect, the pain dissipated quickly.  I found comfort and fell asleep.  It wasn’t the most restful night, though.  From time to time, I half awoke, realizing each time that I was sweating quite a lot, and dozing back off.  In the morning when I got up, I realized that my pyjamas were completely wet, as if I had played indoor football for an hour.  The sheet and the pillowcase were like sponges after a bath.  The most curious thing was I was feeling great.

It was as if I had been reborn, as if the previous three days hadn’t happened.  I was fresh like a daisy, ready for a great day.  The difference to the weekend was mind-blowing.  On Sunday, I refused to paint Easter eggs with the children because I didn’t think I could hold myself upright on a chair long enough.  This morning I could have gone to the forest to collect the twigs from which to hang the eggs.  Maybe it was the vaccination after all that had taken me down.