Mood boost after receiving first Covid 19 vaccination

Today's post is going to be shorter than usual because having got back from the vaccination centre yesterday afternoon, I was subsequently hit by an over-whelming tiredness. I then thought that I'd better be sensible and listen to what my brain was telling me, so I decided to rest rather than spend the evening researching for today's blog, like I normally would.

I mentioned in Wednesday's post that I had been informed about being one of the 1.7 million people with severe mental illness or difficulty that qualified for early vaccination. So, as a result, myself and my younger sister (also priority), trundled off to our designated vaccination centre, yesterday afternoon.

We were so impressed with the efficiency and speed of the whole thing, from being told where to park to being escorted safely out again. The entire process was set out so that you could move through it as swiftly as possible and we didn't have to queue at any stage.

In the brief moment that I was sitting, waiting to be jabbed, just outside my allotted booth, I was suddenly overcome with emotion about the whole thing. I was hit with a wave of pride, over the collaborative human effort it has taken to roll out this vaccine.

From the global cooperation of the top scientists, immunologists, epidemiologists, virologists, researchers, and lab technicians, that worked so hard to create the vaccine, to the doctors, nurses, and volunteers helping to efficiently deliver it, each one of then has played a vital and important part, and it has been an incredible super-human effort.

Watching all the people being vaccinated yesterday, just brought the reality of the scale of collaboration home to me, and I just felt such pride for human nature as a whole, and for everyone involved in this huge and difficult operation.

Taking this into account, while driving home I started to think about the ten percent of people that will refuse the vaccine, and I was trying to calculate how many million that equates to. It's actually about seven hundred and forty million people, and now I'm worrying about the fact that they'll still spread the virus between them and clog the hospitals and it will also mean that the virus continues to circulate which is concerning and perturbing quite frankly.

I've heard people saying that they don't trust the vaccine because it's been created and rolled out so quickly, but what these people aren't realising is that every resource and effort went into it's creation. These efforts were implemented because of the concern over the terrible negative impact, and dire consequences that Coronavirus would have on the population as well as the world's economy. Please take up the offer and have it and please persuade others to do so as well, it's just so important.

The positive gain from having the first jab is that I feel much calmer about the whole thing now. This is because I feel as though I have a bit of protection, (or will have in the coming weeks), and the same is true for my immediate family; four out of five of us having received the first dose.

I'm sure anxiety levels for those other people who have been vaccinated will now begin to lower a bit, I just hope that those who have developed mental health issues in the last year will also find that their symptoms decrease in intensity over the coming months.

On a completely different note, I have some interesting news concerning something I talked about in yesterday's schizophrenia post, and I wanted to quickly mention it now.

I remembered that the gene involved in developing schizophrenia from cannabis and illicit drug use is thought to be catechol O methyltransferase. So, when I got back last night, I looked up my genetic test which I'd had done almost two years ago, (I'll explain why in a future post).

Anyway, the interesting thing is, that although I have had problems and mental health complications with proscribed and prescribed drugs, my catechol O methyltransferase gene is not only present but has absolutely no variance on it, according to my results.

I'm not a geneticist so I'm not sure I've interpreted it right but with no variance on that gene, why did I have a terrible reaction on the two occasions? If they want my genes for research, I'm happy to oblige, I have also thought about leaving my brain for medical research so must make sure I look into doing that!!

That's all for today, but if you would like to read more about genetics and developing psychotic and schizophrenic features, I have added a research paper here.

Thanks for reading,

Speak to you soon,

TR

www.dyingtostayalive.com