Spoon man, sweary fitba fan, QMU get together, Hogmanay moon boots, possible re-registration and jabbing on in Leith

Time for a new update…

Vaccinations continue apace at Leith. The very busy clinics of a month or so ago are beginning to quieten down lately. I presume we will soon start to do boosters and flu jabs by appointment before too long as drop-in first and second jabs appear to reducing in number as is only to be expected.

Now for two of my favourite recent vaccine hesitant clients. First up is Spoon Man closely followed by Sweary Fitba Fan.

Spoon Man came in for his second vaccination. After receiving it he asked if he could ask what he thought might be a stupid or silly question. I encouraged him to ask away. He said that he had seen a lady online who, after receiving her vaccination, had attached a spoon to her arm at the injection site thereby supporting the “theory” that Covid vaccinations are magnetised, or contain magnetic material. He said he had brought his own spoon. Trying hard to keep my eyebrows attached to my face I indicated that he should get out his spoon and try. This he proceeded to do, failing to attach it initially before inclining his arm slightly, but just enough to allow the spoon to rest on his upper arm. I raised my own arm and gently straightened his arm to a more vertical position allowing the spoon to gently detach once more and fall to the ground. He smiled and thanked me for indulging him.

I do wonder how people can think that science has developed a room temperature, liquid magnetic substance and the best use we can find for it is to inject it into the arms of the entire human population in order to...what? Magnetise everyone’s upper arm? Make crowd control easier by aligning crowds with giant magnets? Ensuring that the popular maxim that opposites attract becomes literally true? The mind is often boggled these days.

Sweary Fitba Fan was good too. He sat with a colleague and while I could hear raised voices I could not make out any detail. As I heard him head off down the corridor cursing and swearing I asked my colleague if she was okay and what had happened. The man had entered cursing and swearing and vehemently resenting having to get vaccinated just so he could continue his clearly sincerely held vocation as a sweary football fan. He used very few words that were not actual swear words but nevertheless conveyed his feelings and meaning all to clearly. My colleague asked him to stop swearing and indicated that no vaccine would be forced on him and could only be administered with his full consent. This only served to incense him further. He certainly did not consent and was only there under duress in order to continue to support his beloved football team. Asked once again to stop swearing, calm down and to formally consent was just to much for him to take and he stormed off pronouncing my colleague to be an effing Nazi! All in a days work. My guess is at least there are some referees, linesmen, football players and football fans who will be spared just a modicum of direct and indirect vitriolic abuse over the coming weeks and months. So there are at least some upsides to vaccination passports.

Meanwhile I attended a recent reunion evening with colleagues from the QMU drive through centre and it was great to meet up with early vaccination colleague now dispersed to various vaccination settings across Lothian. Good to see the faces behind the masks for a change. An excellent evening.

On the moon boot front it appears I will be wearing this dang thing until at least Hogmanay followed by a considerable rebuilding process for my disappearing left calf muscle.

Following what will be over a full year of vaccinations and some 2 years on the temporary NMC Covid register come next March I am now considering renewing my lapsed registration. If I do I will join the NHS Lothian staff bank and carry on with occasional bank vaccination shifts with more concentrated periods of working each autumn/early winter for the next few years as flu and Covid boosters are delivered, as I expect they probably will. While I have no wish to continue much longer than March on a regular contract it would be a shame to discard all of the experience built up as a vaccinator over the last year and not contribute to the ongoing effort to control this pandemic and ultimately force it into its endemic phase. Well that at least is the tentative current plan. I’ll let you know what transpires in due course.