As more and more Americans are receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, they are eagerly waiting for normalcy to start reappearing again. Slow and steady progress is being made by health administrators around the world to get each state back to normal living on a day to day basis.

“For me, this is what we need to do to get this pandemic under control and to be able to go back to normal life,” English teacher Ginger Eikmeier said.

Eikmeier received her first dose of the covid vaccine on February 10 at the Wahoo Civic Center. School nurse Amy Krajicek received her first dose January 16 in Fremont at Christiansen Field. She got her second dose February 13 at the Wahoo Civic Center.

Unlike Eikmeier, Krajicek was very indecisive when it came to this decision.

“Initially, I went back and forth on the topic, not really having my mind made up,” Krajicek said. “I didn’t have any strong feelings in either direction and was trying to view it from all sides, as well as tapping into my knowledge on vaccines in general.”

The thing that made Krajicek more prominent towards receiving the vaccine side was that she is a medical provider to her mom.

“I thought of many situations. Each and every item I considered leaned in the direction of receiving the vaccine,” Krajicek said.

After receiving the vaccine, both Krajicek and Eikmeier experienced side effects. However, Eikmeier had a mild side effect and Krajicek had much worse effects.

Eikmeier had one side effect of a migraine. Krajicek at first experienced severe fatigue and a mild headache. As the day passed along, she had chills, body aches, nausea and a fever.

“Just over 48 hours after receiving the vaccine, all side effects were gone except for some lingering soreness and itching at the injection site that lasted a couple more days,” Krajicek said.

Both Krajicek and Eikmeier were eligible for the vaccine.

“Each state has done things differently, but overall individuals have been prioritized by their probability of exposure to the vaccine and their level of vulnerability if they were to contract the virus,” Krajicek said.

For the state of Nebraska, people in the 1A group are healthcare providers and next is 1B, which are people like teachers.

“As a school nurse, I was put in the 1A group to be eligible to receive the vaccine,” Krajicek said.

Eikmeier was put into the 1B group being an educator.

“Being a teacher enabled me to get it as early as I did,” Eikmeier said.

Both Eikmeier and Krajicek were very thankful they were able to obtain the vaccine.

“I’m so ready to go back into regular life. If I can do this little thing, then I will do it,” said Eikmeier.