After a year of fear, stress and isolation, the COVID-19 vaccine often produces something in addition to the the little pinch of sensation in your arm.
The experience is also emotional. Some feel relief. Others gratitude. Many are overcome and start crying.
Some people say the freedom constricted by the pandemic is beginning to return. And that feeling of liberty is familiar to those who have survived previous epidemics.
On a spring afternoon in 1954, 1-year-old Gloria Anderson played with a group of toddlers in Billings, Montana. Two days later her mother learned that one of the other children had contracted polio. Within days Anderson started feeling sick: first a bit of nausea, then fever. Her mom gasped when she put Anderson in a high chair.
“I was kicking one leg,” explained Anderson. “And my mom stuck the pin in my left leg, and I didn't move it.”
They rushed her to the hospital where she quarantined for three weeks. Even her mother couldn’t visit. The left side of her body was paralyzed, and the prognosis was dire — she would never walk again.
But Anderson was one of the lucky ones. Her immobility was temporary, and six months later she took her first steps.
Because a virus almost killed her and still affects her life, Anderson took the coronavirus seriously from the start. She and her husband religiously sheltered in place, and if they had to leave their home, they wore masks. They desperately missed their grandchildren.
“There's heartache,” said Anderson. “These are hard times. But we do it for one another.”