V-Day

I have been on a treasure hunt recently and a few days ago I struck gold! Yes...my persistence paid off and I was able to score two much coveted appointments for our covid vaccines!

Initially I thought our health care provider would be our route to the vaccine, and had resigned myself to the fact that it was going to be a long time before our turn came. The clinic was starting with the oldest age group of patients and then slowly working their way down. When I called, they were only making appointments for those in their 80's. Since Bob and I are at the bottom of the 65+ age group it was going to be forever before we got our call.

Several weeks ago Minnesota opened nine community pilot sites scattered around the state where they were going to be giving shots to those over 65 and also educators. Bob and I were both ready on the first day when the phone lines opened up and repeatedly called...like over 100 times each! At the same time, I also tried to log in to the website using a computer and ipad simultaneously. Nothing. The few calls that did connect were answered with a recording saying the phone lines were all busy. The website pretty much crashed. After a couple of hours I gave up.

Later in the day I checked the website one more time and it looked like appointments were available at one of the sites about 60 miles away. I quickly started trying, but at the end of the process I received a message saying all appointments had been filled and we had been placed on a waiting list. Frustrating, but it gave us a tiny glimmer of hope.

After only two weeks, the state decided to close all but three of the pilot sites (in Minneapolis, Duluth and Rochester) all of which are over 3 hours away from us. New sign-ups were not being accepted and a lottery would be held to choose names from the waiting list. All of the sites were too far to drive in winter weather even if our names did get picked from the hundreds of thousands on the waiting list.

This past week I happened to read that a limited supply of vaccine was being sent out to some of the smaller pharmacies in the state. I called several places listed on the state "Find My Vaccine" website but the best I could do was get put on waiting lists with hundreds of other people. 

Later in the morning I happened to look at the state website one more time and realized that a new pharmacy chain had been added. I went on the pharmacy website and found a location 30 miles from us and began trying to book an appointment. Many times I almost made it through the process only to get a pop-up that said the time slot had been filled. 

I wasn't about to give up however and eventually I was able to set up an appointment for myself. What a relief to see an email confirmation come through saying that my vaccine was scheduled in just 2 days! I had to repeat the process repeatedly but was able to get Bob's appointment booked as well, just10 minutes after mine!

The interesting twist to the story is that around 5 pm that evening I got a call from one of the other pharmacies that had put us on a waiting list. They had available appointments! I declined, but immediately called my neighbor who then called some of her friends. So the time and frustration I spent resulted in vaccines for all five of us!

Much of our weather this winter has been warmer than normal. But...as we headed north for our appointment, the thermometer reading was headed south. The temperature never got above zero and snow was falling lightly and blowing across the highway, reducing visibility in some places.

A snowy drive to get our vaccines.

Getting the vaccine couldn't have been easier. No other customers were in the tiny, small-town pharmacy when we arrived and within a few minutes both of us had gotten our shots. We sat on folding chairs in the cold-remedy aisle for 15 minutes afterwards and then we were free to go. Our only other stop was at a gas station to add air to our tires. Due to the extreme cold, the "check tire" light had come on.

Bob dealt with a sore arm for a couple of days afterwards. I felt a bit tired, but that was it. Now we wait. The booster to our Moderna vaccine is already scheduled in four weeks...almost a year to the day when a state of emergency was first declared in Minnesota due to the pandemic.

Who knows what the future holds in terms of this virus. Besides the variants being reported from the U.K., South Africa and Brazil, today the news is reporting even more variants emerging that have started here in the U.S. At the same time, however, case numbers are dropping drastically.

Right now I am not overly optimistic that international travel will be normal anytime in the near future. But I am hopeful that now we can be comfortable seeing family again and maybe even take some road trips. A little light at the end of a very long tunnel.