Here’s my story.

35F, was psyched to get the first two vaccines in spring 2021. I’ve had a shitty immune system for most of my life and was pretty certain covid would do serious damage. After the second vaccine I woke up in the middle of the night several days later with excruciating chest pain. Couldn’t breathe it hurt so bad. Stupidly waited it out until morning then went to the ER the next day. The doctors couldn’t find a cause but said the vaccines can “be hard on the body” and sent me home. Didn’t tell my anti vax family for months bc they had already started in on me about the first two vaccines. Went to thanksgiving 2021 with my immediate family and it was constant anti vax/pro ivermectin/conspiracy theory talk which continued throughout 2022. I was terrified but scheduled my covid booster for 12/29/21 and ended up testing positive (mild case) the day before, after being infected by my vaccinated and boosted sister in law. Of course my family took that opportunity to repeatedly enforce what a joke the vaccines are.

I could not spend time with my parents without hearing about ivermectin and everything else they regurgitated from telegram and Fox News. Looking back now, I let them influence my decisions. My sister stopped talking to me bc I was vaccinated. My brother, an intelligent engineer who I’m very close to, also refused to get vaccinated. My mom is a retired RN. With the hybrid immunity theory all over the news I figured I was all set for the time being.

I had an appointment w my PCP in September and asked about the booster. I had asked her before, looking for a solid answer. She told me “I wouldn’t get Pfizer”. A month later I caught covid from my brother. Same doctor told me I wasn’t eligible for paxlovid bc I had no risk factors. My acute infection was mild/moderate with congestion, dizziness, fatigue. I was under a lot of work stress all year and worked from home the second week which was yet another huge mistake as I was still dealing with the fatigue and dizziness. I felt worse all around than my first infection. I went back to work after two weeks and physically crashed and burned two weeks later.

Here I am two months later with full ME/CFS symptoms. I can’t work, I can’t take care of myself, I can manage a shower maybe once a week. I feel like I have a flu everyday with the crushing fatigue and weakness so severe I can barely move some days. The cognitive impairment feels like I’ve had a stroke but all the tests are normal. I’m newly married, I worked so hard to get where I was in my career, I just paid off my student loans. It has all been destroyed and my brother recovered from covid and just got engaged. My parents have had covid twice, they’re fine and still insist it was best I didn’t get the boosters.

Everyday I am overwhelmed with so much regret, grief and anger. I am most angry with myself for not protecting my health. For letting my parents and siblings influence me. Life is continuing for everyone while I suffer each day.

So please, get vaccinated, get the boosters, demand paxlovid, wear masks, act like it’s 2020 again bc this virus can ruin your life. I honestly wish it had killed me and I am barely hanging on mentally.

This Thursday, January 26, the FDA is going to decide whether to recommend that we get boosters every 6 months or only once a year.

The data says getting your booster every six months is MUCH more effective than getting it once a year. (Getting boosted every six months is 93% effective at preventing infection; getting it once a year is only 75% effective at preventing infection.)

The senior author of the study says he thinks people won't be OK with getting boosters twice a year, even though that's clearly better than getting them only once a year. That statement led to articles with misleading headlines like this one. It might also lead the FDA to recommend that people get boosters only once a year.

We members of the public can submit comments to the FDA until January 25 at 11:59 pm EST. We need comments saying that we want the FDA to recommend that we all get boosters every 6 months.

Here's how to submit a comment:

Go here.

Click on "Comment" (the blue button in the upper left-hand corner)

Here's a sample text for you to submit:

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Docket No. FDA-2022-N-2810

Please recommend that the general public get a COVID booster every six months instead of every year. It's a matter of life and death. A recent study (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmv.28461) has shown that getting a booster every six months is 93% effective at preventing infection over the course of 6 years, while getting a booster every year is only 75% effective. That difference would mean many more lives saved and long COVID cases prevented by giving people boosters every 6 months.

FDA recommendations affect insurance coverage and doctors' recommendations. If the FDA recommends getting the booster every six months, insurance companies would be more willing to cover boosters twice a year, and doctors would be encouraged to recommend that their patients get vaccinated at the frequency that's most effective. Even if some of the general public refuses to get boosted more than once a year, having the 6-month recommendation would empower more of us to protect ourselves, our families, and our communities as much as we can.

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Once you submit, you'll be asked to pick a category for your comment. I chose "Individual Consumer," because that's who this recommendation would affect most.

Thanks to u/Nym-Sync for posting about this in the Daily Vent thread a couple of days ago, and thanks to u/chele68 for bringing this to u/Nym-Sync's attention.

Joined this community last month, and you've all been lovely. As a high-risk disabled person, it's really good to find other people who hate this virus as much as I do, and are as frustrated by its willing accomplices.

There's something I'd like to talk about, though. Sometimes, when a nominee doesn't get awarded, but does end up with permanent disabilities, like missing limbs, stiff lungs, brain injury--which is a lot of the time, because Covid is a bitch--people are saying things like, "That's not a life," or, "They're basically dead," or talking about how we should just disconnect life support when people are going to be disabled.

Naturally I care a great deal about people being allowed to make their own health care decisions. If you don't want a ventilator, you shouldn't have to have one. If you want a DNR, you should have one. And, in fact, I share your general opinion on the torture of trying to force a dying person to stay alive when they are clearly on the way out, and should be made comfortable and loved for the time they have. Everyone should have a living will, so they can tell their loved ones and their doctors what they do and don't want.

But when people assume that, universally, no one would want to live with a disability... that bothers me, because it isn't true. Doctors often make assumptions about us when we're disabled, assume that we have "no quality of life", because they're starting with the assumption that everybody thinks of disability the way they themselves do.

That bothers me because when you're talking about life with disabilities, that's my life and the life of my friends in the disability community, and we want to live. We don't want to be told that we're better off dead, because this is the only life we've got and we want to make the most of it.

I don't mind it if people say stuff like, "I wouldn't want to live like that," because that's a personal opinion and a statement about yourself. But please don't impose that on everybody else; everybody has got the right to make their own decisions about their own lives and their own bodies. And besides, a lot of the pain of having a disability comes from the way people treat us--abusive nursing homes, refusal to hire us when we can do the job perfectly well, segregation in schools, and all that. If only there weren't so much prejudice in the world, being disabled would be a lot easier.

I know this was probably tl;dr, but I appreciate it if you heard me out.

Preventable Covid deaths