Dear Teacher with a Sore Arm,
Dang, they weren’t lying when they said your arm might be a little sore after the COVID vaccine. I was fine and dandy yesterday and thought, “Maybe they just say that because it happens for some people,” but this morning I woke up to the throbbing reality that I am in the “some people” group.
This restless feeling has me wondering if my colleagues are experiencing the same discomfort, and if they are, have they downed a few Excedrin for relief. That’s my next step.
Don’t misunderstand, I am not complaining. For someone with an autoimmune disorder, walking into the old Beal’s outlet seeing it transformed into a sterile, disaster center was a surreal experience. It felt like a FEMA site. I didn’t know if I should ask for a bag of ice, an MRE, or the Moderna vaccine. I asked for the latter. As I sat in a folding chair staring at an Olympic size training clock waiting for my observation period to end, I couldn’t help but think of the dresses I had scoured through on hanging racks years ago in the Beal’s department store. Surely, I purchased a buttercream candle and gift bag in the exact spot a nurse was now putting a needle in my arm. The world changes so quickly. I don’t know if a snapshot of this will be in future history books, but yesterday, it felt like it could (and should) be. If someone had set up a message exit board for those being vaccinated this is what I would have written.
“I don’t care if my arm is sore tomorrow. Teachers have been carrying a heavy load all year long. We already know about sore arms and pain. We’ve seen kids and colleagues lose parents and grandparents to this awful virus. We’ve carried their burdens to the parking lot where we scream in our cars with the windows rolled up, so they can’t hear us. We’ve watched them sit in desks anxiously hoping, praying, they don't sit in the wrong spot for yet another quarantine. These are the nights we stop screaming but still saturate our pillows with tears for the girl who will miss the state weightlifting competition of her senior year because it falls on the 13th day of her quarantine. A change in state policy says she is now safe to come to school after 10 days but in terms of sports she is still a deadly threat until the 14th day. The fact that she is competing in a single, isolated clean and jerk event spaced 10 feet apart in a mask at state is irrelevant.
Instead of standing on a platform to become the first person in her family to become a state champion, she sits in a math class trying to learn about polynomials, but she can’t stop staring at the clock imagining the very hour that someone is claiming the title she worked four years to achieve. This is when I think of my own sore arm and am reminded, she would give anything to have sore arms this weekend. This shot is so she, and others, can have one too. A shot at being normal again, a shot at living without constant fear, and a shot at setting records that have nothing to do with state titles. I am grateful for the opportunity to truly flatten the curve this time and for the health care workers and school employees who gave me the opportunity to be a part of history. I will never forget this day I hope you don't either.
I would have loved to read what others would have written as well, but as we all know, there’s no loitering with COVID. Surely, an electronic message board could work too though, right? At the very least, a social media thread. If there was one, and there is, right below this post, what would you say?
-CDB
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