Getting Our COVID Vaccines While Traveling Full-Time: Easier Than Expected!

When COVID vaccines first started getting approved, Shae and I were concerned about how we’d go about getting vaccinated.

For starters, our state of domicile is Florida, so how easy was it going to be getting vaccinated in a different state seeing as we didn’t have any plans to return to Florida in the next year or two?

The other logistical problem was what would happen if we weren’t able to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine? That’s a one-shot vaccine whereas Pfizer and Moderna both require two shots, three and four weeks apart respectively. With us moving every week or so, getting our second shot could prove to be problematic, especially if we’d be in a different state by that point.

It turns out that our concern was unwarranted, although that’s partly thanks to some logistics working in our favor.

From Almost Lucky…

We’d been hopeful back in March that we’d be able to get vaccinated while in New Mexico. Shae and I had registered for the vaccine with our Airbnb’s address in Los Alamos but didn’t hear anything. About a week before heading down to Carlsbad, we changed our address to our hotel there. All of a sudden, our cell phones and email accounts blew up with notifications for vaccination events in southeastern New Mexico.

Things were looking positive, but we couldn’t register for any of those events at the time as we weren’t in Carlsbad yet. Unfortunately, by the time we got down there the widespread vaccine availability seemed to dry up, so we were out of luck.

…To Lucky

We then moved on to Deming, NM for 10 days. A few days before we left New Mexico for Arizona, Shae started researching vaccine options for Arizona – the state, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, etc.

She then struck it lucky. While checking out Kroger’s website, she saw that it was possible to book an appointment at Fry’s – one of the grocery chains that Kroger owns. There seemed to be widespread availability, but not wanting to risk it disappearing we both registered immediately and booked an appointment for a few days after we were due to arrive in Tucson.

Things then got even better! After booking that first appointment, we were immediately able to book our second vaccination appointment four weeks later. We hadn’t originally planned on returning to Tucson a month later, but we weren’t going to pass up this opportunity and so booked our second appointments at the same time. Our plans still had us in Arizona about a week before that appointment, so we rejigged our subsequent plans to put us back in Tucson in time for our second shots.

COVID Shot #1

On the morning of our first shot we headed to Fry’s. We had to wait in line for a little while to get registered, but it wasn’t too long before we were called in one by one to get our first Moderna shot.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Shae Pepper (@the.traveling.teach)

Shae was first, then it was my turn. The Drop app was offering $50 if you uploaded a selfie of you getting vaccinated, so we both posted our photos to Instagram and sure enough, we got $50 in points each which can be redeemed for gift cards.

I think that Drop promotion should still be running, so you can still take advantage of it – check out this post I wrote about it on Frequent Miler which explains what you need to do.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by No Home Just Roam (@nohomejustroam)

Vasovagal Syncope

The experience of getting the shot itself was fine – neither of us felt it. The problem is that we’ve since discovered that I suffer from vasovagal syncope. Here’s how the Mayo Clinic describes the condition:

Vasovagal syncope (vay-zoh-VAY-gul SING-kuh-pee) occurs when you faint because your body overreacts to certain triggers, such as the sight of blood or extreme emotional distress. It may also be called neurocardiogenic syncope.

The vasovagal syncope trigger causes your heart rate and blood pressure to drop suddenly. That leads to reduced blood flow to your brain, causing you to briefly lose consciousness.

Common triggers include:

• Standing for long periods of time
• Heat exposure
• Seeing blood
• Having blood drawn
• Fear of bodily injury
• Straining, such as to have a bowel movement

I’ve hated needles since I was 10 years old and had to get vaccinated when visiting Tunisia on vacation. Before that, I’d always been fine with injections, but for whatever reason I got stressed about it that time. My arm tensed up and so the needle went into muscle which meant it hurt more and since then I’ve avoided needles when I could.

The last time or two when I had to get shots I laid down for a few minutes at the doctor’s office and felt better after that. I therefore knew that was what I should’ve done after my first COVID shot, but we were in the middle of a grocery store and in front of other people about to get their shot. However, I was wary about laying on the floor; not due to embarrassment for myself, but because I didn’t want people who might already be nervous about getting their COVID shot to think I was having some kind of bad reaction to the vaccine, when in actual fact it was a mental reaction to needles in general.

I therefore just sat in one of the chairs provided by the store’s pharmacy area, but that didn’t do anything to help the symptoms of vasovagal syncope. Here are the symptoms according to the Mayo Clinic:

Before you faint due to vasovagal syncope, you may experience some of the following:

• Pale skin
• Lightheadedness
• Tunnel vision — your field of vision narrows so that you see only what’s in front of you
• Nausea
• Feeling warm
• A cold, clammy sweat
• Blurred vision

During a vasovagal syncope episode, bystanders may notice:

• Jerky, abnormal movements
• A slow, weak pulse
• Dilated pupils

I had all of these symptoms. In addition to the seven listed items at first, my hearing was affected which made it much harder to recognize what was going on, plus my speech got slurred and I had a hard time thinking of some words.

Shae knew in the past that I’d not felt good after getting a shot, but had never happened to be with me at the time. The pharmacy was having everyone wait 15 minutes after their vaccines, presumably in case they had any side effects. As the minutes ticked on with us sitting there, Shae got increasingly concerned about me.

Apparently I kept trying to stand up, despite me being adamant that I wasn’t trying to go anywhere. My eyes were super-dilated and according to Shae I was seemingly on the verge of losing consciousness a number of times, closing my eyes and having my head lean back a few times while she tried to keep me awake. Fainting is one of the main symptoms, but I don’t think I quite lost consciousness, although it was close.

With my speech also getting slurred, she was concerned that I was having a stroke or something like that. After about 15-20 minutes, I gradually started getting a little better, but still wasn’t 100%. I was well enough to stand up and start walking around, but I was still having a hard time figuring out some of my words. It wasn’t for about another hour that my speech got back to normal.

COVID Shot #2

A month later and we were back in Tucson to get our second shot at the same Fry’s grocery store. It seemed like we could’ve picked a different store, but figured it was best to go back to the same one because we’d spotted something when leaving after our first shot that meant our second shot should go a little more smoothly.

When leaving after that first shot, we spotted an alcove next to the store’s pharmacy hidden behind an outdoor umbrella display.

We therefore figured that after my second shot I’d quickly make my way back there and lay down on the floor. Doing this behind the umbrella display would mean I wouldn’t cause anyone waiting in line for their vaccination to worry about what had happened to this random guy laying down in the middle of the store.

Even better, there was a foot stool which meant I could easily put my feet up to help ensure gravity kept blood flowing to my brain.

It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked. I laid on the floor for 15 minutes after my second COVID shot and felt perfectly fine afterwards. No dizziness, no clamminess, no slurred speech, no nausea, no dilated pupils, no tunnel vision, no hearing issues – just 15 minutes patiently waiting to be done.

Side Effects

After our first COVID vaccination the only side effect that we had from the vaccine itself was a sore arm for 24-48 hours. We’d read the second Moderna shot sometimes brought about stronger side effects, so we were anticipating something but at first it seemed like we got off lightly as we only had sore arms again.

About 12 hours after the second shot we started getting some mild side effects. Shae felt a little nauseous, but it wasn’t too severe. I started feeling a little lethargic, but that too wasn’t bad either. I scheduled our weekly email newsletter (you can subscribe here) a little earlier that night than I normally would though just in case the side effects started kicking in more severely.

I’m glad I did that because the lethargy got worse as the evening wore on. Shae went to bed but had a hard time getting to sleep because she started getting chills. I started getting chills too, but wasn’t feeling tired and so stayed out in the living room, laying down on the couch under a blanket.

I didn’t get much sleep that night because I’d crash out for about 15 minutes at a time, but would then wake up for an hour or two before falling asleep again for 15 minutes. By the morning my chills/fever had passed, but I was tired due to the lack of sleep.

The vaccine continued to kick my butt for a total of 72 hours or so. I didn’t feel sick or anything like that; I just had zero energy and slept more during those three days than I have during any three day period for as long as I can remember. When standing for 20-30 minutes two days after our second shots, I started feeling dizzy and clammy, so I had to sit back down again. Thankfully that passed about 24 hours later and I was fine being on my feet for longer periods of time.

Shae recovered much more quickly. Although her chills/fever lasted a little longer than mine, she got back to normal sooner than I did.

Final Thoughts

I hope my account of what happened doesn’t put you off getting the COVID vaccine. Our side effects from the vaccine itself really weren’t that severe; I’ve felt much worse when having a bad cold. If needing to sleep a lot for a few days is the price to pay for safety from COVID, that’s a price well worth paying.

I also thought it might be helpful to share about my experience with vasovagal syncope because we hadn’t known it was an actual condition until after our first shot. One of our friends mentioned to Shae that my symptoms sounded just like vasovagal syncope and reading about all the causes and symptoms, that does indeed seem to be what I have. Knowing this helped immensely with avoiding the symptoms after my second shot; simply laying down with my feet up meant I didn’t encounter any side effects.

After Shae shared about this on Facebook, one of her friends discovered that this is what she used to suffer from too, but doctors had never diagnosed it. I therefore figured it was worth sharing here too just in case one or more of our readers suffers from vasovagal syncope without realizing that’s what they had.

Getting our vaccines when we did also proved to be perfect timing. We’re flying back to Virginia next week as Shae’s dad is getting remarried, with that being two weeks after our second shot. We therefore feel much more comfortable flying – for both ourselves and others – as a result of being fully vaccinated.