And so we embarked on yet another adventure in "what can go wrong?"
Italy has experienced shortages of vaccine for Covid19. Our little hill town was plodding along, getting the most critical workers vaccinated and then the older population, which is quite large.
Finally, the opportunity to make an appointment opened up for those born before 1972. That's us. People began asking if we had made an appointment yet. One acquaintance said he already had an appointment, but the only vaccine offered was Astra Zeneca, which he declined. He had to sign a waiver and now has to wait for the availability of other types. He is not the only person who refuses the AZ. If you read up on the vaccines, you will know why. Another person told us his appointment is in June. Alright, since I check a town "page" on Facebook nearly every day, I saw the announcement and it included the web address where one could sign up. Easy peasy.......not.
I gathered up my health care card and my permesso (just in case)...and ventured forth on the internet. All I had to do was enter the 20 digit number on my health card and my codice, which is the Italian equivalent of a Social Security number. It took all of a minute and this is what greeted me:
It says that either the numbers I entered were incorrect OR I am in a group that is not yet eligible for vaccination. Of course, I checked the numbers and tried again. Same thing. And again. I asked my husband to go to the site and try his information. Same thing. It was rejecting us without giving a specific reason why.
Our neighbor suggested we try going to the post office, since there are people making appointments there. Silly me, I thought that the clerks were the ones doing the appointments. Instead, we were told to go to the ATM. I was clinging to the hope that since it was going to scan my card that the outcome would be different than when I entered the numbers manually BUT no. Same result once again.
Let me also add that coming to the conclusion that we should even have the vaccination was a difficult one. We both have comorbidities...health conditions that put us at risk of side effects. Frankly, I too, will refuse the Astra Zeneca and I am still terrified about getting these drugs injected into my body.
I checked the central website for national health care and it states clearly that ANYONE living in Italy is eligible to receive the vaccine. You do not have to be Italian, you don't even need to be signed up for national health care OR have a permesso. So, the question remains, what is the problem???
Coming back from the post office, another acquaintance suggested that we go to the pharmacy. We would go up to the pharmacy the following day.
The following day, after thinking about it, I suggested that the pharmacy would only use their computer and get the same result. This morphed into a totally unnecessary argument which crescendoed with my husband saying "I'll just do it myself" and marching out the door. Toodles!!!
Over an hour later, I was pretty sure the pharmacy didn't work out, as predicted. So he wound up in a friend's office (this person has helped us out multiple times with bureaucratic nonsense) and said friend made copies of all of our information and got right on his phone. He was, I am told, on the phone for over half and hour. We still don't know what the cause of the difficulty is. Now I am waiting for a text to my phone that is supposed to contain a code. When (if?) I get this text, I am to call our friend with the code and he will take it from there. Aspettiamo. Tick.....tock.
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No code ever came via text. Late in the evening I got an email from our friend that included a copy of an email he sent to someone and the upshot of it all was that we would probably be vaccinated on Wednesday. Wednesday??? The day after tomorrow??? Si.
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The phone rang this morning, again it was our friend. He confirmed that tomorrow he will take us to where the vaccines are being given. (It is outside of the town proper and not within walking distance, something ELSE to throw a monkey wrench into the whole endeavor).
What exactly was the problem? Chissa? Who knows?? Another mystery wrapped in an enigma. I am somewhat terrified, by the way.
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It started as a nice, sunny day. We opened the windows for the cats to enjoy the views and bird shenanigans. Naturally, by the time we were ready to meet our friend and go for the vaccine, it started to rain. The wind was rather strong, too, making it feel quite chilly.
Let me add that our young friend went WAY WAY out of his way to help us today. It wasn't just a matter of a quick ride (in what became a deluge) but in the outer tent where people were waiting to have papers reviewed, there were about 14 or more people already waiting and large puddles were forming on the ground.
Papers? What papers? The papers we didn't have because the computer kept rejecting us for mysterious, unknown reasons. Normally, this would not be a problem....the fact that they were in Italian was also not a problem. The problem was we were standing under a tent with the wind whipping through and rain pounding all around while standing in a line with nowhere to sit or lean. We could not have done ANY of this by ourselves.
The papers were filled out (name, address, codice, blah blah...info they have in I don't know how many redundancies) and then a list of health questions. They had to be signed in three places. They were sloppy, but they were done.
We were given numbers and ushered inside a fully covered, elaborate tent. Our temperatures were taken. We sat and waited, rain noisily hitting the roof and sides and one guy calling out numbers who was impossible to hear over the din. Truth be told, he wasn't trying too hard to be heard. Would have been a better idea to give him numbers to hold up so people could SEE who was next, just my two cents.The papers were reviewed once again, the same information (which was on the papers) asked for again and entered into a computer. This is when they asked if we had a choice of vaccine. Hallelujah, because I know there were people who were not given a choice. We chose Pfizer. Then they told us when to return for the second dose.
Then we were ushered to another bank of tables where the vaccine was actually being administered. Our friend was telling a nurse that we were Americans and I didn't speak Italian. I love our buddy, but with that I had to speak up and say that, indeed, io parlo Italiano. With that, the nurse/lady asked which arm I preferred and if I was scared (maybe it showed)...I said "Si." "Perche?" I told her I worked in hospitals for forty years....she laughed and said she understood. She prepped my arm and said after the injection to wait in the chairs in the bank ahead of us. Then she told our friend "Lei ha capito," that I understood. Another woman gave the shot, I barely felt it and that was that. I went over to wait.
My husband was done and we all waited for 15 minutes. When we emerged from the tent, the rain had let up a bit.
Two hours in all and back home now...arm is a tiny bit sore and sono stanca ...I am tired. Someone needs a major thank you gift, I haven't got the words in any language to tell him how grateful we are for guiding us through that maze. It's done, finalmente.
