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Health Care Worker Says Getting Vaccine After Working Through COVID-19 Is A Badge Of Honor

Justin Tallis
/
Getty Images
A member of staff poses with a vial of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination health center on the first day of the largest immunization program in the UK's history on Dec. 8, 2020 in Cardiff, United Kingdom.

Updated 1:25 p.m.

As more vaccines arrive in Wisconsin each week, the time when the vaccine will be available to the general public gets closer and closer. But many people are wondering what its actually like to get the vaccinated.

So, Lake Effect asked health care workers who have gotten the vaccine to share their experience and describe the good and the bad that came along with getting their shots.

Beth Sherwood is a child life specialist at Advocate Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. She shared her experience getting the vaccine at her hospital.

While getting a vaccine for COVID-19 is not mandatory for her, she signed up and has already received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

“Some arm pain at the sight of injection for about a day or two and then I was pretty generally fatigued for two or three days. Slight headache day one to two but outside of that I felt pretty normal and typical after the first vaccine. After the second vaccine, I didn’t really have too may symptoms at all. I had like a minor headache and felt a little tired the second day,” she says.

After completing her vaccination, she says it felt like a badge of honor for her.

“You know I’ve worked through this since March and I put myself and my family kinda at risk in many ways of exposing myself to the virus so here we go if this is what it takes to even take a small step in kinda getting out of the virus,” says Sherwood.

She described a sense of relief throughout the hospital when the first doses of vaccines arrived.

“I’m hopeful that, that kinda of energy will kind of continue to propel the rest of our communities forward throughout everyone getting vaccinated. I know it’s taking a while but hang in there, your number will come, I promise,” she says.

Joy is a WUWM host and producer for Lake Effect.