Jamie got his first COVID shot last week. He went to one of those mass vaccination events at the Alamodome. They’ve been doing those several weeks now so they’ve got it quite efficient. But it kind of felt like we were in a dystopian novel with the cars going through specific checkpoints and the Army tents set up for breaks for the people running it.

The first checkpoint they scanned the QR code people with appointments were emailed and IDs. They wrote on the windshield the number of shots that would be given in the vehicle and handed him four pages of paperwork to fill out. He immediately handed that to me as he does. Later he commented that if it wasn’t for me filling it out no way would he have gotten it done before they did his shot.

They have enough lanes that they can do 8 people at once. Three were running the day Jamie got his shot. It’s all done in your vehicle. You never get out. The police guided everyone into the three lanes the were using and kept order as people drove up to the tent where they administered the actual vaccine.

Jamie is not a fan of needles. He hates getting his blood drawn. He hates getting shots. There was an incident when he was little where several people had to hold him down and he’s had needle issues ever since. So he was going to look anywhere but at the guy administering the vaccine. He barely felt it when all was said and done. The anticipation is always worse.

They wrote the time of the shot +15 minutes on the windshield of the van. They had us pull up out of the administration tent. They had people checking over and collecting the paperwork (the guy commented that his job was made easy since it was filled out so well… yeah, that’s me… I love filling out forms) and setting the appointment for the second shot. They asked a couple times if he felt okay. And then, once we hit the time written on the windshield, we were free to go and Jamie had successfully gotten his first Pfizer COVID vaccine. (His arm was a little sore for a few hours, but he had no other issues from it AND he got to take administrative leave rather than use his sick leave while he was getting it.)