The hangxiety of my CoVid vaccine

It’s 5am and I am sitting up with a cup of tea on this rather murky, wet Scottish morning. I have been tossing and turning all night and so have finally given in and just got up.

I don’t do well with a lack of sleep in that I’m feeling really quite anxious and tetchy so I thought I’d try and blog it out.

They say worries feel seven times worse over night, which I can only assume is based on anecdotal evidence and the fact that 4am is the most common time of death.

I haven’t felt like this for a while and is reminiscent of my hangovers at the weekends in my drinking days, which makes me feel even more anxious and tetchy as the thought of those times stresses me out.

Rationally, I know that the problem is that I had my first CoVid vaccine on Friday morning and I’m worrying about potential side effects and a busy few days ahead off the back of a severe lack of normal sleep.

The vaccine itself went ok. I felt a bit sleepy in the afternoon post-jab, had a sore arm and a desert thirst followed by a night of strange dreams (crypto currency, the mafia, and me all hustling along together in perfect harmony). Not dissimilar to my reaction to a standard annual flu vaccine.

I thought that might be it for side effects, so I got up as normal with the kids at 7am yesterday and felt fine until bang on the 24 hour post-jab mark when I started to get the typical signs of a migraine coming on plus a sore throat. I took some pills went for a lie down and the next thing I knew it was 4pm.

I did feel a bit better by then but the best way to describe it would be having that groggy not-all-there feeling you get when coming round from being sedated under a general anaesthetic.

Thankfully my mother in law had offered to take the kids out for a few hours. However too much noise, the sensory overload of Eurovision and everyone’s general tiredness in the evening meant that I was on edge and not really able to relax until they went to bed.

Surprisingly, I fell asleep reasonably quickly when I myself went to bed at the usual time but before long I was tossing and turning again. The windows were open but I felt achy and hot but couldn’t quite bring myself to track down the paracetamol.

So here I am. It is now 5.44am. I’m currently feeling anxious because I have a big Sunday lunch out later with various elderly in-laws. Thankfully my cup of camomile tea is starting to kick in. I don’t want to be in bed all day again but I need to catch up on sleep somehow without my overnight being impacted, so will see what’s what later. I also have a construction company digging up half my garden tomorrow due to a public pipeline issue and so somewhat not looking forward to dealing with that this week either!

I should say that I’m massively grateful to have had my vaccine and for the NHS free healthcare that we have for all in the UK. I don’t want to put anyone off being vaccinated by this post. Please do it if you can.

I haven’t felt this anxious and flat for a while, which is mainly what is bothering me, and it’s a bit of a spiral to nowhere, but I’m sure I will bounce back once I top up my sleep. I also feel a weird sort of emotional release at the relief of having been vaccinated that I will need to sit with and process a bit. Apologies for being so low-fi! Just need a big cuddle I think.

Anyhoo. To turn this round – the weekend has been another big wake up call about my drinking days. I used to choose to put alcohol into my body to excess in knowing full well I would feel like this the next day. I mustn’t have liked myself very much as anxiety and low mood/lack of or sedated sleep is just horrible. Not just for me but for everyone here. Will use this as my positive takeaway.