A Puzzle
After my first dose of COVID vaccine, I felt only the typical sore arm for a day. After my second dose, I felt not only a sore arm but vaguely unwell for a day. When two weeks had passed, I happily considered myself fully vaccinated. However, two days after that, I had what seemed to be a delayed reaction to the inoculation: a couple days of malaise (feeling unwell), weakness and fatigue, with poor appetite. Then I felt fine again. But a few days later, I had a similar but more intense experience that lasted longer (five days). Now, once again, I feel fine...but will these symptoms return yet again?
An Explanation?
I have read about “long-haul COVID syndrome,” a condition in which those who had had the infection continued to have symptoms on and off for many months. Could I have “long-haul vaccine syndrome?” Curious to know whether this was a known complication of vaccination, I had a Zoom meeting with my internist. She insisted that it must be something else, because vaccine reactions were said to last only a week or less. But I hadn’t been out anywhere, so there was nowhere that I could have caught something else. She then revealed that she, too, had had some symptoms that occurred more than a week after her second inoculation.
Problems Accepting a New Idea
At this point, it seemed obvious to me that this was indeed a syndrome, but she had difficulty acknowledging that it might be so because of the received wisdom that symptoms last only a week after inoculation. She is a good doctor. Why was she having trouble opening her mind to new possibilities? Or going against received wisdom? I don’t know her well enough to answer that question.
But speaking generally, there are a number of possibilities. The need to adhere to received wisdom may be due to idealization of authority figures. Or fear of them. The difficulty opening one’s mind to new possibilities may be caused by a need for structure, as those who are raised with rigid structure can feel threatened by the newness of venturing outside it.
Can You Overcome Limitations that You Don’t Even Know You Have?
Using my complimentary Tool, you can give yourself moments of peacefulness and calm. And by altering Step 3, you can wish for a new mental pathway dedicated to helping you with a problem that you specify. If you are unaware whether or not you have a problem (and everybody has problems that they don’t identify as such because they assume that they are givens), you can wish for a new mental pathway that will identify a problem and work to eliminate it.
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