Lori Falce: Celebrating my 1st vaccine anniversary, with no crocodile in sight

Happy vaxiversary to me.

It popped up on my Facebook reminders — the post I shared a year ago to note my first dose of the covid-19 vaccine. Me, my face covered in my pink-and-purple tie-dyed mask that matched my kind of pinkish quarantine hair, holding up the card that said I had gotten my first dose.

“OK, when do I start to turn into a crocodile?” I asked.

It was a reference to the warning Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro gave that the vaccine could have dire consequences — potentially even turning people into crocodiles.

A year later, I can say with complete confidence that I am not, in fact, a crocodile. My skin isn’t the least bit scaly, and my nails haven’t gotten any longer or sharper. I don’t even have cold, dead, reptilian eyes. It’s almost disappointing.

And this is after getting two doses and a booster shot. I have waited in vain for any of the side effects that conspiracy theorists warned were on the horizon.

I am not the least bit magnetic. I don’t pick up cell signals — and hey, if there was anything I was looking forward to happening, it was getting better reception. The government definitely isn’t tracking me with a microchip because I’ve moved and my mail hasn’t reliably found me yet.

I know that some people had flu-like reactions after getting a shot, but I didn’t. Aside from the same arm tenderness I get with any vaccine, I have had no short-term problems. After 12 months, I don’t seem to have any long-term problems.

What I can absolutely say I haven’t gotten is covid. Neither has my son. His vaxiversary is still a few months off, but he is also completely covered and is living crocodile-free and not sticking to metal.

But my friend, whose son got covid before the vaccine was approved for kids in the 5-11 age group, had the case of the disease that is so commonly dismissed as mild. That was more than three months ago, and he’s still weak and has a racing heart. Doctors appointments are becoming a regular part of her routine.

I hate to dismiss the fears that people have about the vaccines as fantasies without grounding in reality, because fears can be something we can’t control. Hey, I’m afraid of butterflies, and I am routinely told they don’t actually suck your brain, but here we are anyway. (It’s lepidopterophobia, by the way, and a completely real thing.)

However, when you weigh the fear of seat belts versus the reality of the car crash, the seat belt makes sense. The same is true of vaccines and the diseases they counter.

And so I celebrate my first vaxiversary. I wonder if I will get any cards? Maybe, but I’d have better luck receiving them if I was being tracked with a microchip.