“It is the first thing we've had to smile about in 10 months”

INDIANAPOLIS — This week IU Health’s vaccine clinic became busy providing the second dose of the COVID vaccine for frontline workers. The second dose of Pfizer vaccines started on Monday, but a spokesperson for IU Health says the larger rollout began Wednesday.

“This has been unlike anything I've ever seen. And I hope that the amount of illness in the hospital when this is over, I hope I never see this amount of critical illness again, ever” Dr. Gabriel Bosslet said.

The Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at IU School of Medicine and Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician at IU Health, Dr. Bosslet, was one of the first to receive his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Monday.

“It feels like the end is close. It feels like the last year what we've been through in the last year is possibly starting to come to an end. It feels — I'm giddy,” Dr. Bosslet said.

In an interview with WRTV reporter Nikki DeMentri, Dr. Bosslet candidly shared side effects felt primarily after the second dose including body aches and chills.

“We use the word side effects, and that's fine. They're not side effects. I mean, they are my body appropriately reacting and forming antibodies to a foreign agent. It's my body. Those things I experienced yesterday that fatigue and muscle aches is exactly what I should experience as my body, you know, builds up immunity to something new. I'm totally fine with it,” Dr. Bosslet said.

He continued, “Do I wish I didn't have side effects? I don't know. But I'm thrilled that I did just because it means that I know that it worked.”

He is encouraging all Hoosiers to get the vaccine. “This is our way out of this full stop,” Dr. Bosslet said.

Although he is now fully vaccinated, Dr. Bosslet said it takes about two weeks to be fully protected. Life for him, he said, won’t return to normal despite being fully vaccinated.

“When I wear my mask, I'm protecting you or whoever else is in the room. The vaccine protects me. The vaccine that went into this deltoid protects me and me alone. We don't know at this point, whether that vaccine prevents me from sneezing out virus, if I happen to have the virus in my nose, it probably lessens the risk that I pass it to others, but it doesn't make it zero. So, the fact that I'm protected, but that you, for example, haven't had the opportunity to get the vaccine means that for me to assume having had the vaccine that I can go live life normally isn't fair, because I could still be a vector of this disease. So I will continue to wear a mask and distance until the hospitals are calm, until case loads are much more manageable and until most or all the population has at the very least had the opportunity to have the vaccine.”

On Wednesday afternoon, WRTV caught up with Dr. Warren Gavin as he received his second dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine and spoke with him on how he was feeling afterwards.

“There's a little bit of nerves because you didn't know what to expect with the first one, but this being the second it's almost almost pure excitement,” Dr. Gavin said.

Dr. Gavin is a hospitalist at IU Health Methodist Hospital and has worked exclusively with coronavirus patients the last 10 months. He said he expects side effects after he got the second dose.

“I’m still gonna mask up, I'm still gonna wash my hands, I'm still going to social distance because the vaccine will offer 90 to 95% protection. I'm still going to take those precautions until the proper public health officials say we can come out of these things. But I will be walking around with a little bit more confidence. Not like Conor McGregor confidence, but I'll be confident,” Dr. Gavin said with a smile.

IU Health has administered about 26,000 doses of the COVID vaccine, according to a spokesperson.

State officials said Wednesday 585 second doses of the vaccine were given so far.