I’ve traveled a lot this year, and I have several more trips to go, but I did have a nice break between the middle of May and the beginning of September.

Just before I left for my last trip the new COVID vaccine was approved, and I was eager to get it, along with this year’s flu vaccine.

Since 2019 I’ve had COVID once and the flu once. The flu was a way worse experience, and at least I got COVID after the strain weakened enough that it wasn’t highly fatal.

Some friends of mine recently tested positive for COVID and, from their account, while it doesn’t kill you it can make you wish you were dead. When I had it years ago it was like a mild cold and I tested negative after seven days. They tested positive for three solid weeks and they are still having major issues after five weeks.

No thank you.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time before my trip to get the shot, and it turns out that for some reason the US government has decided that people must have a prescription in order to get vaccinated.

Now I try to keep politics out of my blogs, as I figure my three readers have plenty of sources for political doom-scrolling, but it seems ironic to me that the same people who, during the Affordable Care Act debate, coined the term “death panels” - that it was wrong for government to decide who was “worthy of medical care” - are now deciding who is worthy of medical care.

(sigh)

I am lucky enough to have good insurance through my employer and I have access to a pretty talented GP. While I was on my trip I wrote to him via MyChart and he called in the necessary script to my local Walgreens.

The jab itself was pretty painless. I had the COVID shot in my right arm and the flu shot in my left, and they both feel slightly tender but nothing more than that. I was a little lethargic yesterday (but then these days I’m always tired) and feel fine this morning.

In one bit of good news the North Carolina government announced that prescriptions would not be required for COVID vaccines about an hour after I got mine, so if you live in NC I strongly suggest you get one before they reverse that in the near future.