Ladies and Gentlemen, after a wait of 10 months (which seemed like 10 years), I’m happy to bring directly to a medical facility near you, the One, the Only……COVID vaccine! Give it up for Modena and/or Pfizer.

By time you read this blog post, I am optimistic that I will have already made an appointment for Bill to receive his COVID vaccine. In the Land of the Sun where we currently reside, the vaccine process is going much slower than it is in other states. States like Colorado, the which we fled in mid-November because their numbers were spiking. We currently reside in the state purported to be the worst in the United States. Maybe the world, depending on how many cases the inhabitants of the East Antarctic Plateau are reporting. If we were in Colorado, Bill would be sitting pretty with a band-aid on his arm and a smile on his face. Here in Arizona, he has had to wait until the second round, which becomes available today. My plan is to arise early and make his appointment as soon as possible. I feel like I’m waiting in line for Taylor Swift tickets or a new Apple updated phone in the early 2000s. It is my sincere hope that he gets an appointment sometime in January.

I am grateful for the availability of a vaccine. It is beyond my imagination that it took less than a year for the amazing scientists and physicians and researchers and pharmaceutical executives to work together and come up with a vaccine. Granted, we are putting our trust in those same folks, hoping like hell that the reason the vaccine works isn’t because it makes your head grow so small that the virus can’t fit in through your nose.

Ever since it was announced that the COVID vaccine would soon become available, I have been trying to figure out how the rollout will be explained to rubes like me. Will my doctor email me? Will my pharmacy send me a text? Will the governor give me a little ringy dingy on my cell phone? Will the ubiquitous signage above our highways give me a clue? I called my doctor’s office and was told I needed to ask my pharmacist. I asked my pharmacist, and he looked at me like I had asked him to explain the meaning of life. No clue. His response? Ask your primary care physician.

Argh. I was getting dizzy.

And then one morning last week, I opened up my iPad and my BFF Google announced to me that the Maricopa County Health Department was opening up the vaccine to those in Category B. I’m not sure who all that includes, but I know it includes those 75 and older, a criterium that Bill meets. I am hoping that the fact that I am Bill’s care partner will make me also eligible. If not, I will certainly be in the next category sometime soon. And for the next few months, I can keep reminding Bill how much younger I am than he.