Getting Our SHOTS!

Wait, is that what we have? Do we have vaccine confidence? I have vaccine confidence. There's a name for what I do. I'll be confident when everybody else gets vaccinated. What she said. Therefore, pretty confident about it. We're taking a shot and sharing some really big news. Pun intended. Malika's phone is ringing. That's my son. Sorry. You're just so busy. You call mommy back in the middle of the day and I'm busy now. Hi honey. We're taking a shot and sharing some pretty big news with you guys. We're going to take you down this lovely, candid experience Malika and I shared together. No one paid us to do this. No. If they did, we would just tell you. But because Khadijah and I are pretty candid with you guys and share on multiple different topics, we thought that this would be something we should touch on. We do things together. It's important to us. This is not us pushing anything on you. It's just us genuinely sharing our experience. And you may be interested or you may just find some information helpful. So here it goes. We're vaccinated. It was really important to us that we get involved in some of the active ways of us getting back to being normal. I had ACE probably on the very first day of the pandemic. Hospital shut down. Traumatizing. Then Khadijah got pregnant in the middle of the pandemic. Traumatizing. Shut down. Not seeing friends. Not seeing family like everyone else. Mostly because we wanted to protect these babies. We have so many children in our family. And I know Khadijah is a lot more responsible than me, but if I didn't have a kid, I probably would have been outside. I mean, of course you are. You just had more little people to think about and protect and take care of for a lot longer than me. I was a pretty selfish bachelorette for like a real, real, real long time. So a real, real, real long time. So I thought, you know, what will we do? You know, there's nothing that we won't do for our kids and to protect them or to see our country or our world get back to a little more normalcy. By God's grace, neither one of us got COVID. We've been very, very strict and very, very safe. And for a very, very long time. Yeah. And I also think, well, personally, I was driven by the fact that I had asthma as a child. This virus seems to attack the respiratory or the muscles from my research. And then my daughter also has asthma and she's had hospitalizations and all that. So that alone will scare you half to death. And when she was in the ICU, she was already on oxygen. So I keep seeing these things of people needing oxygen, the short of thereof. And that scared me. So I thought if I'm going to maybe go back to work after the baby, I need to protect my family, myself and go ahead and make that sacrifice. So that's what I did. Being that we're the younger sisters to Dr. Akilah Richmond, we have had a pretty good ear to the science and the testing that was done on the various vaccines that are available. And as a family, we all decided to get the Pfizer vaccine. So I think there's only one person in our family that is not vaccinated. It's my husband. Don't ask. It's okay. In the end, we all have spent a great deal of time like researching and figuring out what was going to be, you know, best for us. And we, what do they call that? Herd immunity. Are we the herd? Is our family the herd? Yeah, kind of. Because B3 was, I had him vaccinated. Yeah. He didn't want to, but he wanted to play basketball. And so I encouraged that if he was going to go back to campus, where there are a lot of children from a lot of different households and a lot of exposure, because they're going to do away games and get on buses, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a lot. So I told him that I thought it would be best for him to protect himself. He is 17. They were doing vaccinations for 16 and older. And I said, you know, I think it's time. And he had a really great experience and no side effects. And he made it out great. I think it's the younger people that are just really hitting it hard right now. They're doing good. Like I've heard that multiple times that some other teams, they get vaccines. They don't have any symptoms. I kind of have symptoms. So when I decided it was time for us to get vaccinated, I went on the CDC website and I made an appointment based off of my zip code and my area. Made one for myself. Made an appointment for Malika. Made an appointment for my older brother, Jamal, our older brother. Because, you know, I felt like it was hard at that point too, for everybody to even get appointments. Remember, we would look. You'd look one second. You'd call somebody to go, did this day work for you? You'd go back to the website. And that appointment was no longer available. So I did our appointments maybe about two or three days before we actually got the shots. And I was a little nervous. It was better not to have a long period of time in between when you got it done. I don't think I just thought all that much. I was just like, OK, let's just do it. We're doing it over with. Yeah. And then the morning came. We made a date to meet there. I'm following the cones. What I didn't realize, because I'd seen this on the news, I'm going to tell on myself for a second. I didn't realize you didn't get out of the car. Pull up and you're in the lanes and they'll tell you what lane to go to and they verify with your email and the code and scan and all that was given to you. And then I was like, so where do I park? And they were like, oh, no, no, no, no, ma'am. You're not going to park. It's a drive-thru. Yeah, it's just a drive-thru. So you're just driving through all these cones. Started documenting it because I didn't get what was going on. And then, you know, they rolled down the window, took my ID and administered the shot right through the driver window. This lady says it's not going to hurt. I'm vaccinated. I just didn't know that. I thought it was really, really cool because they got there first. So she was just like giving me this is where you go. Hope you get in this lane because these people, when I say what floored me was not the amount of cars or people that were there to get vaccinated. It was the amount of help that to me. I mean, the gentleman that I sat and spoke to was so kind and wasn't even from California. I think he was from Louisiana or something. He was just a doll. And I asked him, I was like, are you vaccinated? And he said, no, I'm going to wait until everybody else that really needs it gets their vaccine and then I'll do it. But he was like a nurse, so he had every right to do it. But like, I just thought that kindness and that and I guess that's why people in the medical field, I just I love what they do because it's such a selfless thing to do. But he does put himself in harm's way in a sense. And so did so many of those other people. And they're just standing out there waiting for you to drive through for you to get your shot. And I couldn't speak to every single person that was there. But God, I would just be like, thank you so much for what you do because it's a big deal like you're saving lives. And they really did bus their whole constantly to go against this hellish virus. So I thought that was dope. So the last thing I was really worried about was like myself. I'm like, well, you've been standing out here for freaking eight hours. Just go ahead and get it over with. Wasn't going to give anyone a stress or anything. I was like, fine, I'm here. It's happening. Done. I don't like needles. I was a little nervous about the shot. And then I barely even felt it. No, yeah. And then the girl that gave me my shot was so gentle. Happened so fast. Yeah. She's like, it's not talking me through it. I'm scared. You're very gentle. I've worked with kids, too. I've been going to 16 years. Amazing. And then all the nursing staff, they have you like pull forward. They wait for you. It's how you turn your engine off. They throw your window down. They would like to just watch you for 15 minutes. Get an evaluation. Make sure you're feeling well. How are you feeling? Tell you to hydrate. That was a really big one. Make sure you hydrate before and after. It was actually very hot when we got it, too. It was. It was a hot day. So that was nice. And then we just sat there. It was a good experience. It just was. I really do believe in medicine. And I have a great deal of respect for the science behind medicine. I mean, it does save lives. Everyone has to do and figure out what is best for them. But do I trust science and the people that literally have been behind not just this vaccine, but so many vaccines? I do. I don't get all of them. But I did always feel like, you know, if they come out with something to get rid of this, so I can go back outside, I'm getting it. Yeah, I think I'm going to get it. And then they, you know, came out with multiple choices. And I said, yeah, I think we as a family know that this is the one we're going for. Pfizer it is. I also think, too, it's like once you get the shot, then you're like, oh, OK, well, that wasn't so bad. But I was wrong because then the second shot you start hearing, well, that's when you really get symptoms and that's when you can start to feel really sick. So then I was nervous all over again for the second one. And it was true for me. That's when I did not feel very well. And that's when we went together in the same car. We did. We decided to go for the second appointment together. And I mean, she's always a little more nervous about anything that she thinks can hurt her. Because I'm physically more sensitive than she is. Like nothing really bothers her. But I have a very low threshold for pain. Mind thing. So sure enough, two hours later, I've got this banging headache. Call you. I'm fine, I don't have a headache. And I'm like, great. No, I didn't. I'm like, just take some Tylenol. I believe in that. I don't like to suffer. Every four hours. Only symptom I had was both time. I was just by the evening, I was a little fatigued. And my arm was a little sore, but nothing a little good ice pack couldn't heal. Asa's got a bunch of great ones. I just used one of the baby's ice packs and moved on. I did Tylenol every four hours. The headache turned into the body ache. When I mean body ache, I mean almost every part of my body ache. Not just the arm where the shot was administered. The other arm hurt for no reason. Hips, legs, my back. You're just old. Just beat up. I felt all my epidural sites, like my lower back was on fire. And then in the middle of the night, I was awake. I was like awakened by like chills. A weird spasm type situation going on. But it didn't happen a lot. It happened like two or three times. And then I was able to go back to sleep for the time being. Wait, what was it? What was it again? What did you do? I was like a weird twitch. You're not nice. The fact that you did it again for me, that's the best part. And then it went away. I think I was like that for like 36 hours. And then I listened. I hydrated. And I think that really helped. And then it was like, it never happened. It wasn't COVID. So I'm thankful. We were watching CNN. Definitely are getting this. Just wait a second. Akilah's going to give us the rundown on which one to get. My sister's like, everybody's getting vaccinated. Everybody in this family gets vaccinated. We don't have a choice but to listen to her really. Because you don't want to hear her mouth outside of that. So it's like, okay, fine. No, we're all doing it. We're all doing it. We don't care. Me and my brother are like dying to go to Vegas. And she's like, you can't go until you get vaccinated. But then we listen. So after we got our first shot, we had to celebrate. Vaccine party. Why not? So we did. We went to lunch with our big brother. We had a couple shots. My idea of hydration. We drank water and had food, but we had shots. So we just wanted to say on this happy day, we are vaccinated. We're vaccinated. We're all vaccinated. I think we were celebrating the fact that we could finally have the vaccine because we wanted it for so long. But I think we were also, you know, you're just one step closer. And I'm not saying get the vaccine and then go take shots. I don't know if that's even something that you're allowed to do. But we were fine afterwards. Just, you know. We're not even saying get the vaccine. Maybe just get the shots. I don't know. Take whatever you want from the conversation and use it however it works best for you. I don't know if tequila is going to fight off COVID, but you might be happy in the moment. So it could be worth it. So just give it a try. This is why you don't listen to us. I know. We're just sharing. So on a scale of one to ten, and you being a baby, what would you rate your vaccine experience? I mean, you're fully immune, right? Or you're fully vaccinated, right? And then after two, three weeks, that's when you've got your highest immunity, right? Yeah, I believe that's what it is. So rate your experience. One to ten. Go. What's up there? I just don't think I'd give it a ten because I still remember the headache and, you know, me in pain. But I still probably, I thought you would have rated it like... High. That was high. No, yeah, but that's still, yeah, that's still like, yay, I'm happy and I'm fine with my experience. What's yours? I think mine, it's just, maybe I'm gonna rate it like an eight. And I get it. Okay, why eight? Physically, I was fine. I'm just mad we had to take it in the first place. So that has to knock two points off. You took my whole year from me. All right. I still got some negative things associated with the fact that we even had to do it. And we're still wearing masks. Everybody. So I think, I mean, I gotta knock a point off for, you know, it ever existing. And another one for still having to wear a mask. And one for still having to wear the mask. But other than that, it's got eight points of success on there. So I'd say it's pretty good. It's not bad. All in all, we encourage you to do what's best for you. Do your own research. Go to the CDC website, look into information, do it again, have conversations, talk to family, talk to friends. And whatever you do, be safe, take care of yourself and take care of others. Yes. We hope you guys can just take a little bit of this and use it to get the vaccine. Use it to not get the vaccine, but make your own educated guess. And just hope everyone is safe and healthy. Let us know your thoughts on the vaccine. Comment below. Here's a shot. Subscribe.