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The News Observer
I’ve had good reasons for not getting a Covid-19 vaccine ever since talk of one began. All my reasons gave me a solid platform to “just say no” to taking the shot. See if you don’t agree.
The last time I took a vaccine to prevent something, I got it. That was a flu shot when I was a teenager - got the shot, got the flu. Never again I said.
The COVID-19 vaccine came out way too quickly – not enough testing. When I learned it had been in the works for years, I still stuck by my guns. No one can predict long range affects or how long the vaccine will last.
I stay away from putting any kind of drugs in my body. The only two exceptions in the last decades are tetanus shots and a combination of steroids and antibiotics when my allergy symptoms have turned into sinus infections.
If the federal government is telling me something is good for me, I don’t believe it. Look at what its done to education.
The vaccine is a way for the federal government to make citizens feel it will and can take care of them. It won’t and it can’t.
Many people have gotten sick from taking the vaccine. Amy got the one-shot version and was sick as Cooter Brown’s dog for the better part of two weeks. How can sick make you healthy?
There are some more, less aggressive reasons, for building my “just say no to the shot” castle, but the ones here have been enough to keep the needle out of my arm.
Until last Wednesday.
To everyone I have told my reasons, and to everyone I haven’t, I confess. I got my first shot of the Moderna vaccine and am anxious to get the second. I have 21 days to go.
So what changed my mind? Family.
The oldest Harbison son, Josh, has been sick for the better part of two weeks, testing positive for COVID-19 after returning from taking the teenagers in his church to camp.
He went from sick for a week to urgent care, to the hospital, and then into the Intensive Care Unit where he spent almost half his eight-day hospital stay.
My granddaughter got it, then her Mom, then my oldest grandson, then Josh’s mom. Like dominoes they fell one after another to the virus.
Josh got out of ICU Saturday and got to come home Sunday without oxygen to supplement his breathing. Miracles happen. God is good.
His wife and the kids all got over it at home.
His mom continues her fight, fending off pneumonia.
So I got my first vaccine as soon as I could. No, not because I was suddenly scared, but because I couldn’t go help. All these family members are a little more than eight hours away in Missouri. It’s what the folks with Covid figures say is a hot spot.
They told me not to come, they didn’t want me to risk getting sick. And, even if I was there, I couldn’t see Josh and everyone else was under quarantine – no one allowed without the vaccination.
So here I’ve been, pretending to be alright with the situation.
Well, I haven’t been. I fix things when the family needs them fixed, that’s what I do. And there was no way to fix anything from eight hours away.
My fingers are worn out from text messages. I’ve talked more on the phone in a week than I probably have in a year – and that’s a lot. Still, I wanted to be there. There had to be something I could have done.
So I got the vaccine for family.
There are a lot of good reasons to get the vaccine, many of them that counteract my reasons not to one by one.
So read and study and argue and resist all you want. Then go get the shot. It’s not about you, it’s about your family, the people you love, and even those you don’t.
Getting the vaccine builds a foundation on rock, not on sand.
Eating a little crow – admitting a change to my stubborn attitude – doesn’t taste good, but it beats having to sit on the sidelines when you know your family needs you.
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Glenn Harbison is publisher/editor of The News Observer. He can be reached at 706-632-2019 or by email at glenn@thenewsobserver.com.