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Birthday, Vaccine, Remakes

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago1,081 words

It was my birthday on the 25th, and I had a COVID-19 vaccine on the 27th, so I want to acknowledge those in a post! Also, interesting how Pokemon have decided to tackle their Sinnoh remakes, in a way that should please both those open to new ideas and those hungry for the nostalgically familiar.

I wanted to write a post on my birthday - I'm 33 now, which is horrifying - looking back on all the major events in my life that'd led me to this less-than-ideal place... but it felt a bit too dreary and self-indulgent, and I lacked the energy to finish it due to depression... as is often the case with many things these days.

It all feels like a distant dream now, anyway, due to this vaccine I had. The UK is vaccinating everyone starting with the oldest and most vulnerable groups first, and apparently the fact that I have brain cancer means I have an "underlying health condition which puts [me] at higher risk of becoming seriously unwell", so I got one before others in my age group. It's somewhat surprising to me since I've not been sure during this whole pandemic whether I was especially vulnerable or not.

I got a call about it just a couple of days before my appointment, so that was sudden. I also had fairly severe anxiety symptoms for a few hours before and during the appointment, not because of anything medical or conspiracy-nutty regarding the vaccine itself - I've had brain surgery twice before so it seemed trivial by comparison - but just because I haven't been out into the world in months so everything felt a bit overwhelming.

I have social anxiety, but I'd probably call this general anxiety? Apparently I get paranoid about physical symptoms that seem to be the beginnings of something like a panic attack, or I worry about spewing something out of one of my orifices in a way that'd be catastrophically embarrassing if it happened in public. So I end up falling into this spiral of anxiety about anxiety ("feels like I need the toilet, but I can't suddenly do that now so what if the anxiety gets too bad and it comes out anyway?!?"), and have to use a bunch of self-calming techniques just to hold things together. It's like a constant battle between my conscious and subconscious minds, or something. An awful experience.

Once I got the vaccine - which happened as soon as I entered the surgery, and I was out in less than five minutes - I felt relief; I wasn't expecting any side effects or anything. But I was very surprised by how severely it affected me! I had awful shuddering chills for about an hour as I tried to sleep, and spent the whole night feeling fidgety, too hot or too cold, unable to drift off. Terrible headache, sore all over. Lots of physical and mental sensations that reminded me of the surreal agony after the brain surgery.

I've been lying in bed all morning feeling completely beaten-down, though I took some painkillers which seem to have helped enough for me to get something to eat... That's something.

It's annoying, since I had plans for stuff I wanted to do over the weekend! Depression often gets in the way of plans, but this has been so awful that I've actually been wishing I had the depression fatigue instead...

One of the things I wanted to bemoan in a birthday post was how I still live at home despite being the age when most people would have their career and family at least roughly sorted out (or at least that's the impression we're given, though I wonder how accurate it is)... but going through this awful health stuff would have been a lot worse if I lived alone. So I suppose it's not all bad... though I know it can't last forever. Maybe once the pandemic's over...

Being ill like this makes the whole world feel different in a way I can't put into words... It's odd. It was like this while recovering from brain surgery too. Like there's this openness or calm that I'd normally be oblivious to while consumed by the regular routine. Like falling off a road and having to wander through some woods. I spent a while lying in bed this morning just existing, and as physically horrible as it felt, I kind of liked the unusualness of it. Felt like school being cancelled and getting the day off; something like that.

I finally got a new game to play! Did you know there's a Bravely Default II, which is the third entry in that series after a sequel released a few years back? Because I didn't until I saw it in the Switch store! Apparently it was released yesterday, so - with some reluctance due to the high price - I decided to bite the bullet and buy it. I played and enjoyed the others, after all, and it seemed valuable to play an RPG since I'm making one myself. I have a bunch of indie PC games I want to play, but I chose this since it's on the Switch so I can go and lie in bed and play that while I recover.

I think the idea behind it was that the other sequel (Bravely Second) was disappointing to fans due to changes, or something (news to me since I played them in isolation and didn't think either one was better than the other), and this is a reversion to what people liked about the first?

The next Pokemon games were also just announced, and they've decided to tackle the Sinnoh games as both straight remakes and a novel and experimental fresh take on the formula.





Makes me think about my own approach to a MARDEK remake, and how a lot of people seemed to want something completely faithful to what they were used to, while I was more interested in a different angle of the old material. I wish I could do both like Pokemon is here, though I don't exactly have the resources for that! Promising that people seem generally more excited about the novel thing than the faithful remake though. (I am, of course.)

Anyway, I just wanted to ramble a bit as a reason to get out of bed, really. I seem to be feeling gradually better, so that's good!