Saturday, January 23, 2021

Covid Vaccine, First Shot


 So the vaccines arrived in Maryland, causing some chaos and controversy. Those in "Tier 1B" (people over age 75 and others such as at-risk prisoners) were invited to register for appointments beginning last Monday, the 18th. At Zoom Bible Study on Sunday, January 17th, Shelly said she couldn't find out if, when, or where the shots would be available in Laurel. Cheryl said she'd managed to register herself online. She logged out, realized she'd forgotten to register her husband, tried to log back on, but couldn't find the site again no matter what she did. 

My husband spent Monday morning chasing down information on the internet. Our older daughter soon plowed through the thicket of too-much-information, located a climic less than 10 miles from our house, and even talked to a worker at the clinic. She gave us the phone number we needed to make an appointment. 

Our appointment was on Thursday, January 21st, at 5:30 PM, at the Prince George's County Hospital Center.  Fortunately, we arrived a little before 5, which gave us time to recover from getting lost. The detailed directions we'd been given didn't exactly match the lay of the land. We were to enter the "ASC Building" at 3001 Hospital Drive. Hospital Drive abruptly turned into Mercy Lane before we saw anything with a number on it. We couldn't find any "ASC" building.   After ending up in a parking lot full of dumpsters and tractor trailers,  Phil gave up and dialed the clinic number. We were told to drive into the parking garage, which was right in front of us, and enter the building. I studied the building's exterior later, after we ended up on the top floor of the parking garage while searching for the exit. Where did it say "ASC"? Nowhere! Instead, big bold neon letters proclaimed this large, hard-to-miss brick edifice to be the "Prince George's County Hospital Center."  Oh well. 

At the clinic, however, everything went smoothly.  Check-in, injection, followed by a 15-minute wait in the lounge in case of an allergic reaction. We were a little apprehensive of having to wait in a long line, but we were in and out in less than a half hour. Kudos to everyone at the clinic and the arrangements they had made to keep everyone safe and socially distanced. We have appointments to return on February 11th at 3:15 for the second shots. 

10 comments:

  1. Happy for you! My brother in law is supposed to be vaccinated tomorrow but New York ran out of vaccines - I don't know if they rescheduled. My other brother in law was vaccinated earlier this week. My husband and I (65 plus) have appointments in mid February. It was quite a process getting the appointments for you and us both.

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  2. My older daughter manager to find an appointment for my 88 year old mother, and she found an appointment for her father (a teacher). I don’t qualify yet. Older daughter is an employee of the police department, she was vaccinated at the police academy building.

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  3. Woo-hoo! Congrats. My group (teachers) is supposed to be up next week, but we'll see, since I don't work in the city I live in.

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  4. Well that is such a good thing and I guess there weren't side effects later, like the next day.

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  5. I'm part essential worker and I got my first shot the 8th of this month. Felt like good ole hard bug bite. Got appointment the 5th of Feb.
    My husband group of being over 65 start next month.
    Coffee is on and stay safe

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  6. Glad the hardest part of the shot was getting there!

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  7. That sounds like quite an ordeal. I'm glad it all ended up well for you.

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  8. Hooray, hooray, two down, two to go.

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