Thirty hours later and here we are. Seemingly well.
Monday morning about 10 a.m., my wife, Huskerland Penni, and I received our second COVID vaccinations. Here we are, 30 hours later, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Got some bodies aches and a little fatigue but that's about like any Tuesday anymore.
Actually that’s not entirely true. Penni has told me all along, darn it, she ain’t gettin’ sick from no shot. So far, so good. For both of us.
To be honest neither one of us had reactions to our first shots, either, expect for a little tenderness and the world needs a lot more of that. Although mine was in my arm.
It seems like a lifetime ago I was sitting in the parking lot at Shoemaker’s Truck Stop on the east edge of Lincoln, the Friday morning of the 2020 boys state basketball tournament. Most of you had been told to stay away but I was cleared by the NSAA, after all I was a member of the media. Like I told my friends at the NSAA all that told me is they seemed to think were expendable.
One of them laughed when I said that but it wasn’t exactly the boy-you-are-so-funny kind of laugh, it was more a watch-your-step sort of laugh. Noted.
All teasing aside the road to doubling down on my does of Moderna has been a wacky ride.
To review, last summer I was like you, my life in a holding pattern, trying to keep the Central City paper afloat with hardly any type of advertising nor any kind of non-COVID news because there was nothing allowed to go on. As for Huskerland 2020, I had collected the preview forms and plunged ahead, telling our readers (like you) we planned to publish all our issues of Huskerland Prep Report during the upcoming football season, one way or another, which we did.
I was on the sidelines for Nebraska high school football every night last season but one, the one where in the morning I didn’t feel all that great (trust me, that wasn’t what concerned me, that happens about every day) but then I spiked a mid-morning fever. Texted my doctor, the world famous Dr. Brian Buhlke, who asked, rhetorically, “um, Bob, didn’t you have your shingles shot yesterday?”
Sure did.
“Well, that’s probably just a reaction, you’ll be fine.”
Still didn’t go, just to be safe, even though by early afternoon I felt about as good as a 63-year-old will in early afternoon.
Winter sports season, mostly basketball for me, was hit-and-miss as we moved to Gretna about Christmastime and it was weeks until we had our ship in order. Or mostly in order. It’s still a little out of order, but Penni and I are getting by.
Word came down from on high the vaccinations were available - so much politics involved in that whole process, we could be here all day if I started, so I won’t - and we jumped at the chance. Made our appointments online, made our follow-up appointments online, and waited our turn.
Our location for our shots was CHI Papillion, which is located at 84th Street and Highway 370, about a eight-mile straight shot from our new home. Each time the line moved quickly, the people assisting were quite pleasant, and the experience as a whole was completely bearable.
At least to this point.
Each time we were told to wait 15 minutes before we left, just like you were, and had no ill effects either time. Following our second shot we decided to go out for breakfast at one of our favorite places, Summer Kitchen Cafe, which is across the street from Cabela’s, right off Giles Road. Had the French Toast sampler with sausage and might I say, I highly recommend you do the same.
Penni and I plan to play ball with regard to the masking over the next few weeks, or whatever the guidelines allow, though I must say I am looking forward to May 4, when the Triple AAA Omaha Storm Chasers open their regular season against the St. Paul Saints, the top farm club for the Minnesota Twins, right up the road from us at Werner Field. I hope to be a regular at Werner Field this summer, and maybe at the College World Series up at TD Ameritrade Park. We’ll see.
Like almost all of you we have lost friends to the effects of COVID-19. We have watched in horror with how the pandemic has impacted our own lives, our friends and family, our country, and our world. We have been lucky that our immediate family has gotten off almost Scot free, with only my nurse sister Rhonda having been a victim of the pandemic and mercifully her symptoms were relatively minor.
Which reminds me of the old saying that minor surgery is somebody else’s surgery, but you get the idea.
So, here I sit, at my trusty keyboard telling you, our faithful readers, all about it. I can’t say I feel about my life the way I did in mid-February of 2020 - COVID or no COVID so much has changed in my life - and there is certainly no “rush” that came with my second vaccination. But it was an important step for both me and Penni and we have those shots behind us, time to move upward and onward. And to Johnny's Italian Steakhouse for a nice Friday supper with my bride.
Time to talk a little Nebraska high school football and I hope you are talking about it too, enjoying our website and what we do to help promote the game and its players.
