Sherri's Story

Listen to an Edmontonian Pastor's experience with covid by clicking on the Soundcloud play button. You can also read the transcription below.

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Sherri's Story: Recorded March 4th, 2022.

Bailea Jackson 00:01

Okay, there we go. Okay, so I'll get you to just introduce yourself real quick for me.

Sherri 00:06

Sure. My name is Sherri. I have lived in the Edmonton area for about eight years. But before that I lived in Ontario and I actually grew up in Saskatchewan. So I've been in all parts of Canada throughout my life. And I am a Pastor of a small to mid sized church community here in the city. And that's what I do. And I have a family and I, I have many things in life that keep me busy. So it's a it's a full time gig on all fronts.

Bailea Jackson 00:42

Wonderful. Awesome. Okay, so we'll jump right in. So my first question for you, is kind of a general question. So what might someone living in Alberta choose to consider the start of the pandemic? So thinking like, just Albertans in general, what would you what would you gauge?

Sherri 01:01

The start?

Bailea Jackson 01:02

Yeah.

Sherri 01:02

I think I would probably, I have memories. And when I think about the context, I think that kind of at the beginning of March 2020, we'd maybe been hearing things in the news about like, other things abroad in the world in different places. But I feel like here in Alberta, I started to actually hear and I think others might agree, start to hear things about it actually coming closer. And so in my mind kind of that first week or 10 days is when it felt like something was happening. And then, for me, I have a very distinct memory, on March the 13th. Where, because I'm a pastor in a church community, we were preparing for our regular services for the week. But all of a sudden, things were coming out in the news and things are starting to shut down or take a pause. And so we had to make a decision on that Friday, if we were going to go ahead with services on the Sunday, and we chose to not, we chose to let our congregation know that we wouldn't be meeting that day. So that day really stands out to me as, like, in some ways, for me, that was the start. As the first big decision that needed to be made, that life needed to be altered. So.

Bailea Jackson 02:12

And was there like a, like when you announced that, was there kind of a pushback where people were like, well, hmm?

Sherri 02:18

Well, I think initially that especially that first week, because it had only - if I'm, you know, it's all, you're kind of trying to remember what was happening at the time - but I feel like it had only been a couple of days where things were actually starting to shift and change. And people were kind of thinking about like, oh, this thing has come here. So maybe if we just pause stuff for a couple of weeks, I remember using that phrase a lot, a couple of weeks, then we'll see where things are at. And so when we first announced that we're going to do that we had like a leadership group that talked about it and was like, this is probably the the best thing to do right now. Just take a pause and see what happens. Some people I think thought, oh, that seems quite dramatic to because, you know, many of our church going folks have gone to church every Sunday, their whole life. And so it was a big, it was a really big thing, because we don't even really, you know, postpone or cancel services for bad weather or any of that kind of stuff. So it was very notable. And we all just kind of took that pause, which of course, went to another week. And yeah, and you know, and now we know, it wasn't long before people were like, if anybody was feeling hesitant about it initially, it wasn't long before people were like, Oh, that was a good decision.

Bailea Jackson 03:31

Interesting. Okay. Okay. Okay. And my second question for you, how have you marked celebrations with your friends and family during the pandemic?

Sherri 03:42

Yeah, it's been a variety of things, because the pandemic has had a variety of faces, where different things have felt possible and safe. So I mentioned that I have a family. So I have two younger children elementary aged. And so that means that there are things that are still really important for them, like birthdays, and, you know, Christmas celebrations and all that. So we have tried, as our family, just our household, to do we've had to do a lot of smaller things. So birthday parties, but not with friends trying to find other ways to make them special. It's been tough. One of my children has a winter time birthday. So two times, his birthdays come around. And we've not really been able to do anything because it was at a time when you couldn't even do indoor like you couldn't do go to the museum or at least not in a way that our family felt comfortable to participate in those things. So you do things like order special takeout food and try to come up with that kind of stuff. That's fun. In some times of the pandemic, when it has been possible to gather with a few people at a time. We've just kept our circle small and done a lot of things just at home. Not a lot of going out to do things or participate repeating in more public spaces or settings, and we haven't in our family had any big celebration. So just because of it's just worked out, there haven't been any weddings. There haven't been any graduations. So we haven't had to navigate that. But there's been other things that are also important. And you just kind of keep skipping over them, like maybe a special anniversary that you would have had a party for. But we've just chosen not to. We've tried to take advantage of summertime when you could do things outside. And so even if we miss celebrating something in the winter, try to get together with somebody in a little bit of a different way. So trying to be creative, but mostly just really scaled back. And it's just kind of come and gone. And there's not really any getting it back. It just is what it's what it is. Yeah.

Bailea Jackson 05:52

Okay. And I mean, you mentioned that you have kids, I'm wondering about like, extended family, like, I mean, you said there hasn't been any weddings and stuff like that. But I don't know, if you talk to extended family often. But what, what about those relationships?

Sherri 06:10

Yeah, I think there's been a couple of different things that have happened there, there's some some of our extended family is local. And so we've been able to depending on what phase pandemic life was in, we were able to get together and do things like even having meal together in the house, you know, do those sorts of things. We have some family, that extended family that was a little further away that we haven't seen at all, really during the pandemic time, which there's a variety of factors for that. But some of it is definitely related to pandemic comfort levels and, and that sort of thing. And then we have some extended family that lives further, like not locally, where we we have gotten together. And we've sort of sometimes it's been like we went all camping together. So we sort of chosen outdoor activity where we could join. A couple of times we have met at one of our like someone's home and so it always has felt, that's happened maybe two or three times over the course of the pandemic, and it always kind of feels like you're making, for us it felt like this is a calculated risk, like, we are in we are choosing to spend this long weekend or this this week of vacation with two or three other households that we don't usually that we're not with in our day to day life, but also have done that feeling like that's part of what makes the whole thing bearable. If we sort of live live carefully most of the time, then sometimes doing that sort of just helps maintain those relationships and have an opportunity to spend some time together even if it's not quite as it would be in a non in non pandemic time.

Bailea Jackson 07:49

Yeah, I think calculated risk is a very good way of putting it because you're right, you know, we do kind of have to think I've done all of these things to be safe, you know, can I afford to do that? So I think that's very relatable for sure. Okay, so how has your daily routine changed in the pandemic?

Sherri 08:09

Yeah, pretty significantly in some ways. I've I have my job is such that I can do it from home, I can do most parts of my job from almost anywhere. So at certain phases, in the pandemic, I did it almost exclusively at home, which was a big shift. And because the nature of my work is seldom, like it's a small period of the time, it's like set times, like sometimes I have meetings or some I have a few set things in the week. But a lot of it is just this is the this is the basket of work that needs to be done this week. And it can happen in a lot of ways. So that means that the, of course like so many people have experienced work life and home life, I already don't have a very good designation between the two. And so this just amplified that because I was, you know, basically set up at the kitchen table, and was constantly working and then making dinner and then back to work and then doing this. So what used to be a little bit of work from home when I wasn't, didn't get everything quite done. When I was in the office became a lot of work from home. I did have the opportunity because of our church building, and the fact that it was there were long stretches were really little to no one was accessing the building, I was still able to use my work office. So I didn't ever have a time where I was completely unable to access that space. And so that became really important too, because sometimes I just needed I needed to even if it wasn't because there was a project that needed the office to be done, I just needed to be able to be or I wanted to be able to be out of the house. And I was grateful for that because I know not everybody who ended up in a work from home situation was able to escape to somewhere outside of their home sometimes So that was like the work, shift was really big. And then there's also though, again, because I've school aged children, that has been probably, for me the the other big dynamic throughout the pandemic, because it's always felt like when schools, when they've had to close schools or go online for a time, that has - that's a really big shift for a person's day and how everybody's feeling what everything. And for me, I just found that those stressful times, they were the most stressful transitions for me. And so there was just the constant needing to be prepared to do that, even if it wasn't happening, kind of always thinking about it that way. But on typical day, I mean, when the kids are in school, then it's like, things like making sure you have clean masks to send them to school with that would became like a regular part of a morning routine, and always kind of making sure that like both my husband and I work, and so we kind of just decided at the beginning of it, we would not book meetings at the same time. So that if we got called and needed to pick up one of the kids from school, one of us would always have the flexibility to be able to do that, because it just felt like now that needed to be planned into the day. Whereas before, it would be an anomaly that you might have to go pick up a kid from school now it felt like no, we need to be prepared every day, in case that comes up and said, We have to be able to navigate that. So those are some of the kinds of things that have changed. For me, I think probably also like, a lot more, a lot more, like scrolling social media trying to get - stay on top of things or not even really staying on top of things just in that habit of, so doing more of that kind of stuff. And then the converse of that not doing some other things, that typically would be what I would do with my leisure time. You just find yourself sometimes getting a little bit to sucked in to that part of the pandemic. And trying to navigate that.

Bailea Jackson 12:11

Yeah, I was gonna ask, when you mentioned, like online schooling is how technology has really come into your day to day or how it's changed in your day to day.

12:21

Yeah. So like, at the particularly at the beginning, when it was like everything was just so haphazard. We kind of just as a family, we sort of just made do with what we had, we were like, Okay, well how, you know, the kids got, our son got sent home, you know, in the spring, and then didn't go back, which was like a big or the late winter, early spring, that very first year, and didn't end up going back. And it was like, okay, so it kind of managed, but it was stressful, because we didn't really have enough of the right kinds of devices in the house for it to be easy to do. And so then we kind of made some adjustments so that we could be prepared for that. You know, if it came around again, we've been really fortunate, it's it's not been a lot of time that either children have had to be home from school. So I've been grateful for that. But it does mean that even the fact that so much of their classwork can be done online, I think it even just changes the kid's relationship to computers, because now they have actual work they need to do there. It's not just for fun or entertainment. And so then you're like, having to try to think about balancing that like before, where you may have felt like, Oh, they've been busy doing stuff all day, and then that they want to come home and watch TV or now if you look now they're just on TV on a screen all the time. And how do you possibly navigate that when some of it is how they're accomplishing their work and how the teacher is needing to manage things because of this back and forth that's happening all the time. So yeah, there's been some shifts. And I certainly find that, as I said, I'm spend more time reading things and looking at things and sometimes have to make a conscious decision not to do that. And we have found to even in the context of our our congregation. Of course, there's now been a long period of time where a lot of our community connection time happens through screens, which I totally understand that people are at work all week on screens. And then the last thing they want to do is like get together on a screen for something but on the other hand, trying to be careful and thoughtful and responsible about that. So yeah, the technology has crashed in all parts of life.

Bailea Jackson 14:41

Whether you like it or not, and yeah, it's made its way in hey?

Sherri 14:44

Yeah.

Bailea Jackson 14:44

Yeah, okay. Interesting. All right. So as someone who works with their community, can you think of any moments that have happened because of the pandemic, which has kind of changed how you perceive the community that you're working in.

Sherri 15:02

Yeah. So when this first started, and our community is we have a number of senior members, seniors in our community, and then we have, you know, families that have teenagers and younger children, we kind of have on both both ends of the spectrum of age. And when we first had to transition to pandemic church, Zoom church, I remember being really, I just had a big question mark, in my mind, because I was like, I'm not actually sure how accessible that is, for a big part of our community, and the part of our community that, you know, perhaps is the most used to being at church regularl, and that has been in the community the longest. I was worried that we were going to make this, try to make this shift, and we were going to, it wasn't going to work because people just feel like it's too complicated. I don't know how to do that. I don't have a computer, you know, that sort of thing. So I was anxious about that the beginning, it turned out that people were very motivated to figure out how to do that. So we spent a lot of time pastorally in the first, you know, 2-3-4 months doing things even like, visiting people and helping them set up their computer and help showing them how to sign into zoom and all that kind of stuff. So that was something where I was surprised that we managed it. I thought that maybe it was going to not work. And it was always going to be this, this horrible tension. And that, but that that wasn't the case. And so that was a that was like a positive surprise, because I thought, yeah, I didn't know how it would go. And we've been at it. And even now that we do have people that have reached some people that have felt comfortable to return to the building, as that's been possible, we have a lot of people who join that way, join our services. And that continues to be something that like people have found a comfort level and being able to do that. Of course, there's been some interesting, and there's been different opinions or perspectives on the best way to navigate community life together. And so, I mean, there are there are sort of, I won't say one off, because it's not as if they're anomalies, but there have been different engagements over the time. And I almost always feel like they're both for myself in the ways that I maybe have interacted and responded to things. And sometimes for other members or groups in our community. It's almost always because of stress. Just become stressed and don't quite know how to handle it anymore. And then don't, because this has gone on so much longer than we anticipated. Things that were a great adaptation for three months, or even a year. Now it feels like well, I didn't reallyseem good anymore, and trying to sort of navigate that. So I don't know that so much that my perspective changed on on any one on any person or group or even my community as a whole. But just that there certainly have been different times where different things have been challenging. And I've certainly noticed over the scope of it, that changes. So sometimes we were really worried about making one another sick, like that was our that was our main concern. There are other times when it's been like, how do we discern what the correct rules and policies are for our group, in this time, sometimes is that people are beginning to feel lonely and isolated and want things to be kind of more normal, but not enough other people feel comfortable for that. So. So I think that, yeah, it's not, it's on the one hand, it has not always been easy to do. But for the most part, I've been very grateful to be in a community that has worked hard to, to find a way like to constructively find a way and be willing to do things like use computers in ways they haven't been used to or forgo some special traditions that usually would be right at the center of Christmas or Easter or whatever. But for the good of for the larger community have been willing to do that in an adapted way or pause that for a year. And so I have a lot of gratitude for that.

Bailea Jackson 19:23

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. And I think what you said about stress, makes sense. I mean, we're told that this is only for a couple of weeks, and then it turns into a couple of months and then you're like, Okay, how patient do I need to be? So yeah, that's a good point for sure. Okay, so another general question. So how has the pandemic change or challenge relationships in Alberta? So, as an Albertan, thinking kind of province wide?

Sherri 19:56

Yes. I have certainly felt as someone who has won lived in the province now for a while, and now it's home for me now. I feel like in all the time I've lived here, and I think more, it just feels like it has become such a tense time. There, I think many of us if not all of us have some relationship or group of relationships in our life that became quite strained because of different views on, on how to handle things, different views on what's happening, just as on a basic level. So I think it's been hard. And I think it also is the kind of thing that won't be easily resolved. Like even if, even if we woke up tomorrow, and they were able to say it's over, like it's truly over, it's gone away, we won't get sick anymore. Even if that were to happen, I think it will be a long road, to be able to find ways to rebuild bridges that have been damaged during this time, because it just felt like it maybe goes back a bit to that stress or that pressure that people have felt. The ways we've protected ourselves has been to sort of push further apart as opposed to try to find a way together. And so I feel like provincially we just see that evidence of that in like a lot of a lot of areas of our social and political life together. I don't think Alberta was particularly unified province before this happened. So it wasn't as if we were in a really great place, and then this was just came out of nowhere. But I do think the pandemic has had an exacerbating effect on tensions that were already there, it's just sort of created a bit more a lot more complication. And we're we are all human. So our feelings get hurt, AND and OR we get frustrated or angry with one another. And it's I'm not sure what the path will look like to trying to make a bit of peace going forward from this.

Bailea Jackson 22:09

Okay. Interesting. And then specifically for yourself, has there been any moments where your relationships have been challenged or have changed at all in the pandemic?

Sherri 22:21

Yeah, I have had some, I mean, I've, I've mostly been quite blessed in that way. I haven't had it, mostly I've been able to navigate it okay. There have been some relationships in my circle that were just a deep, like a deep - a lot of space between me what I how I understand things and how I want to live and be and act in the world, and what others think is okay, and fine. And so, and what's that I'd have found difficult as it's gone on, you know, and I'm thinking of a couple of particular relationships. There's, there was a long time where it was like, well, something's probably going to happen that will help us move past this. It gets to a point where you're like, I'm not actually sure. I don't actually know, what would bridge the gap or what would what would help us be able to come back to a conversation together. Because, you know, things get said and understandings get set and accepted or rejected. So yes, I have experienced some, some rupture in some relationship and, and wonder what will happen with them, because they're not really their relationships that are going to be in my life. So they're not, they're not ones that I can just be like, oh, well. They're ones that are, they're close enough connection that it will, it will matter. And it's yeah, it's unclear to me right now, how - what that road might look like.

Bailea Jackson 24:02

Yeah, and that can add to stress too, just not knowing how that's going to, you know, too. Yeah. Okay. All right. So in keeping up with COVID, updates internationally, nationally, and provincially, what resources do you trust to give you the information that you need?

Sherri 24:22

Well, I have tried to not - well, though, I have Doom scrolled a lot - try to not do that as much. I get a lot - I decided so early in the pandemic, I watched all the press conferences like that the chief medical officer did and was constantly checking those websites and both provincially and nationally, or, yeah, federally and I stopped doing that other point because I found them stressful. And so instead I connected to those same sources through Twitter. And so then I would just, I would know when the updates are happening, but I wouldn't watch the full press conference, I would just wait until the data had been synthesized and then I would go get that. And, you know, at the beginning, I kept like a really close tab on that. As time went on, there were seasons where I didn't watch so closely, because it seemed like things were not as dire. And then. Now, even though things are like there, there is data to look at, I find, it's harder to know or for me, even though and I think, I think those sources have even though I would see them as being the most reliable in some ways. I feel like it has also become difficult to know what to do with the information they are choosing to provide, like they give us certain kinds of data. But it's like, does that really give us a helpful picture or not? So I feel like I have even become a little bit, I won't say skeptical in the sense that I don't think, I don't think they're putting false numbers out there or anything like that. But any kind of stat that you provide gives a certain lens and providing certain stats instead of other ones, or providing them in a certain order a certain way, has an impact on how, as the person receiving it, I get it. So I feel a little bit less sure about what to do with that. At times, I know, there's also been like alternative sources that have, say, in Alberta, specifically, like doctors and healthcare professionals, who have taken their own run at the numbers and said, like, Okay, well, because of this, this is what we might, how we might interpret that. And I have not followed those closely. But I sometimes look at them and I think that they have an important voice as being really part like close to the struggle of at least what hospitals are experiencing and what the outcomes of that might be. I don't - and I watch some news like CBC, that kind of thing. There, I felt like there came a point where the news, the nightly news was simply a series of people getting needles. And though I was grateful for those images, knowing that they were happening, I didn't need to watch an hour of people getting needles every night because that was basically what the whole newscast was. And so, again, that's where I would go if I wanted to kind of get an idea of where things were at. But they're just, we just all, it was the only thing we all had to talk about. And there was only so many ways of talking about it. And so I tended to not get my information - well I didn't - from, you know, random social media groups or whatever, that weren't linked to some kind of official body or some kind of vetted, vetted in the sense that it's the kind of news that I think is mostly reasonable and balanced. To say that everybody thinks their news is reasonable in balance. So I'll say the ones that I have determined are reasonable.

Bailea Jackson 28:17

Yeah, that's exactly why I have that question. Okay, great. So there have been numerous protests and demonstrations at the Alberta legislature, downtown Calgary, as well as in other parts of the country, like in Ottowa since the pandemic has started. And I just kind of want to know what your thoughts are, on how COVID has kind of brought people together in that specific way?

Sherri 28:49

Yeah, yes, um, well, I have strong feelings about that. I think that generally speaking, a way of thought about I thought about it, like pre the, these more recent, you know, blockades and the things that we've, we've seen happen and are experiencing in different ways in different cities, even people who were very, very intense about their feelings about vaccinations, particularly and masking and different, different measures, whatever they might have been. It has felt a little bit to me like people, my most charitable way of thinking about it, and I think the most human way, is that people have lost many things in the last couple of years, and in that experience of losing so many things, or having to give up things or whatever ,it has made people want to find a space where they can say something and maybe someone would listen to them and I think that part of the reason, or at least the way I see it, that these groups have started to form these protesting groups, is because people want to actually be a part of something, they want to feel like they're at the center of something and like what they're doing matters and that they have an insightful analysis, and that they're going to show the right way. I mean, almost all of us have some inclination towards that. And there's a large group of Canadians that have chosen to express that by following the rules or by participating in measures of some kind, to some extent. But of course, there are those who didn't experience things that way. Don't interpret it that way. Don't understand it that way. And I think this has become a place and a moment where they can belong to something. And I think people just have so deeply want to belong to things. I find it troubling, because it's one thing to make an assessment of a situation. And and I believe, sure, sometimes leadership structures, whether they're governments or other kinds of organizations, put rules in place that are not fair, that are discriminatory, that adversely affect people's lives. I think there's a lot of injustice in the justice system for lots of groups of people. So it isn't about that there's never a time to question or push or raise, you know, raise the alarm. It's just been difficult to watch. Because it's this is this is a posture towards this whole societal experience that we're we're all in, that doesn't take into account the most vulnerable, and those who sort of need care the most. So I just I struggled to know, or, I struggled with it. And I just can only imagine it's that people just want to feel like they belong somewhere. And this provided a very dramatic, very public way to do that. So, and I'm not, I'm not even sure what the, where it's gonna go for them as a group, and for the rest of us who this is one of those things like how do we talk together? After some of that stuff has transpired? It's, it's hard.

Bailea Jackson 32:21

Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right. How might someone living outside of Alberta perceive Albertans during the pandemic?

Sherri 32:33

That's a such an interesting question. So I think there's maybe two different kinds. And I know people who have, I've had some experience with both. So on the one hand, I have I have friends and family members, but I'm thinking of a particular friend, who lives in another province, who's also a pastor of a church. And so we've had to navigate some similar kinds of questions, dynamics, considerations. So we often have talked, though, our provinces are often at different places, in terms of where the rules are, or what the approaches are going to be. And more than one time, she's been like, oh, boy, like, it's tough here but I can imagine being there. So on the one hand, I do think there's at least some people in Canada, and I think it's not a small number, who looked at Alberta and are kind of like, oh, my, I don't know how they're managing over there. I do think that that's out there. And, and I know anecdotally of someone who traveled to visit some family, and had trouble getting this was pre vaccine passport, pre some of those tools that we now have, but they had gone to visit some family, and they had trouble getting into restaurants and things like that, when they found out that they were from Alberta, because Alberta was not in a great COVID space at the time, we had high numbers and not a lot of restrictions. So I know that that is at least one way that other people in Canada from other places. On the other hand, I think I know some people that have looked to Alberta and people who want more want less restriction, want more, just everyone choose, they have looked at our province have been like, well look at Alberta. But that, I do think that's a smaller group of people. And that I don't have evidence for that, I just think that there might there's must be some that look and say, Well, I wish I lived there because at least you didn't have to do this or that. But certainly personally my connections would say a lot more people were like, oh, sorry about that. How much longer, well know questions like Are you going to stay there? Like those kinds of things because it isn't just about the current moment. Though the current moment is very intense and reveals a lot of things but this says something about this place in the world and how it's organized and the kinds of ways we make decisions. And so, yeah, so I think some people are worried about us or don't want us to come visit.

Bailea Jackson 35:14

Okay, cool. And how does that perception affect how you see yourself as an Albertan?

Sherri 35:25

Yeah, um, I feel kind of I struggle with that. Because I, I would have, if I would have been around tables making choices for our province, I would have made some really different ones, or at least advocated for different things along the way. And I know that part of that is because of the sort of job that I have, and the kind of community I interact with, I'm often thinking about, you know, what would bet - what best takes care of everybody here, which is not how everyone in my role approaches their job. But it is how I approached mine. And so I haven't always liked, well I haven't liked being an Albertan in this time, and I wish we could have done better and more, we could have been an example we could have been showing people, you know, this is a way to have some rules in place and follow them in a reasonable way. And so I think it has adversely impacted my personal identity in that, not to the point where I feel like I need to move out of the province or anything, and I know some people have needed to make that decision for themselves. But it has not helped me feel like - being in Edmonton helps me a lot. I feel like I don't know where else I could live in Alberta, other than Edmonton, but I feel like Edmonton is a little bit of an island sometimes.

Bailea Jackson 36:53

Fair enough. Yeah. I think some of the elections will probably back you up on that. Okay. What were the thoughts or your thoughts when you first heard about a vaccine for COVID?

Sherri 37:12

Yeah, so I, when it first started coming, I remember having so many questions and wondering about like, could they possibly develop something fast enough like this? Even though I think we, I think I'm more aware now that though COVID felt like it caught - well it caught me completely by surprise, like global pandemic, like, Oh, my goodness! You know, I have since learned that actually, that's something that has been possible for a long time, and it just hadn't actually broken out, sometimes when it could have and whatever. So when they first started talking about that, I just remember being so not skeptical that vaccines would be helpful, but skeptical that they could develop them in time, that that they would actually be shown to be safe enough and, and effective, that they, you know, so and then once they were coming out, it took a while before I felt hopeful about them. Again, not because I thought it was a bad idea. I just was kind of like this is we're in such a big mess. What's the chance that this will actually help? And that we'll actually be able to produce enough? Like all those kinds of questions. So it went from maybe safety questions to like supply questions like, so, though, I was like, well, this does seem like an important - well, at the time, when, like at the beginning of that, it felt like that, was gonna be the way out. But it's a lot of questions about how it was gonna happen. And then as more information started coming out about it, and whatever, then I certainly felt like I, I've been an advocate for getting vaccinated and have done it myself and feel like, you know, that's an important, I've come to the perspective that it's an important tool in our toolkit, but it didn't end up being the doorway out of it, which, for me, and I'm sure for many others, actually, it was very discouraging, because it kind of felt like this is the silver bullet. And then it's important. It's it's important as any measure, but and more important than almost all other measures in some way. But it didn't end up being the thing. It didn't end up doing it in the way that at least I was thinking it would like Oh, we'll get it and then we'll be fine. We won't get we'll get COVID and and the more people that get it, then all those people won't get it either. And obviously it's not, that's not how it's turned out. Though, it's helping us but it isn't solving the problem. It's not making the problem go away. It's just an important, it's a it's a help, in a big problem with a lot of a lot of different pieces.

Bailea Jackson 40:03

Yeah, yeah. And you said that you receive the vaccination? If you can describe that experience. So how did you get your hands on it? What was the whole process like? And how did you feel about all of that?

Sherri 40:22

So I had a, it was not funny at the time. I was someone who was sort of like, right on the edge of an age bracket. And so you know, at the beginning, when they were first opening up, vaccinations to different groups, you know, like first age related, and then like, people who had other vulnerabilities got access first. So I was right on the precipice of like, they had opened it up to a new bracket. And so I booked my appointment, and I was very, and I, in our household, I'm the oldest person and so I was the first person in our household that was going to be eligible to go. And I, I went to, I'd booked an appointment at a pharmacy. And then when I got there, the pharmacy, I had had filled out the paperwork was sitting in the chair. The pharmacists actually had the vial of like, the stuff sitting there, and then looked at my form. And it was like, because it had just opened up to this new age bracket, looked at the forum and was like, oh, when is your birthday? And my birthday was about three months, like, from the day when I was there, my birthday was coming up. And the birthday I was going to turn was going to like make me the age at the youngest end of this new bracket. And the website, or I had talked to people who have that, oh, it just need you just need to be born in a certain year, like it doesn't matter. You've actually crossed the birthday threshold, they just need to be born in that year. And so he looked at my form, and he's like, Well, are you actually this age? And I said, Well, I will be. And he wouldn't give me the vaccine. He said, No, I'm not allowed to give it to you. And he sent me home without it. And I cried the whole way home. And it wasn't, and I just I think it was because at that point, too, is at the point where you still felt like this is this is the beginning of the end. And it was so demoralized. Because I you just realize you don't even realize how much tension you're holding in your body, or I didn't realize until that happened. It was the case that within a couple of days, the province of Alberta clarified on their website, what they meant, and they did mean birth year, not birth day. So it was just in that that week, when things were a little bit not totally clear, which has often happened through this experience. So that was my first try. And I didn't get it. But then. So I just waited until I wasn't - because I said I don't want to go and get not get it again. So I just waited a little longer. And then I went to like one of the not a pharmacy, but to like the clinics, like the designated spaces that Alberta Health setup. And then I did my first two like my first one and then my second shot both through that kind of system. And it worked fine. Like it was good. It was a good experience and was well managed. And then I did get my I did my booster at a pharmacy by then I felt like well, they're probably not gonna turn me away. They just want to get them in people's arms. So. So. But anyway, that first experience maybe just revealed something about at the time, how important it felt. And then I think I didn't feel emotional. Like some people got really emotional when they did get it. I guess maybe I'd let it on my emotions on the time I didn't get it. But yeah, no, it was it was a good experience for me. I didn't have trouble getting access to it. Like I I had to wait a little bit, but not a lot in like a finite amount of time. So, yeah.

Bailea Jackson 44:05

Did you feel sick after I know people were really kind of knocked on their butt.

Sherri 44:09

Yeah, no, I was mostly okay. Like I had a sore arm all the times I got it. But that was about the extent of my mine. So I was fortunate that way. Yeah. So that was good.

Bailea Jackson 44:19

Cool. And last question for you. What do you hope people in the future looking back on the pandemic will keep in mind or remember? So they like so far in the future that they're not really touched by the pandemic. What do you kind of hope would be passed on to that generation?

Sherri 44:41

Yeah. Well, it's been an interesting something interesting that's happened in my community is that we have some members of our community who remember polio, and like lived through that, which is different than this is but they have some very vivid memories about like, you being isolated or different things like that. And because like just the interest of my community, we've spent some time talking about the flu from, like, happened, like 1918, or whatever. So it's interesting looking back at those kinds of moments, because even that like to think about ourselves in relation to those moments, it's like, oh, yeah, that really stuck with people, you know, like in the things they felt afraid about or worried about, or the loss that families experienced in those times. So I think I would hope that if somebody, so if somebody was to us what we are to polio, and that last big flu, or I don't know what the right way to talk about it, but that last big thing that happened. I think I would like I would hope my hopes would be that they will learn some lessons from what we didn't do well. Particularly, I think we did not take a global view. And we still haven't in in a robust enough way that it would actually make a difference. So I think the fact that so many countries did not have good access to vaccines, because of patents because of poverty and an inability to secure resources, because rich countries stockpiled, while countries that did not have the same economic options couldn't. I think that that has been one of the biggest problems is that we just all kind of looked after ourselves. And it started on a small level. And we only thought about ourselves, and what would be best for us. And then it just kind of expanded to globally, we were even doing that. And so I would love it, if a future generation if they faced something like this, that one of the first places they started was to be like, how will we make sure we approach this so that we can find everybody can access what they need when they need as quickly as they can. And not be so caught up in, like, it's important to look after ourselves, by looking after ourselves, we can look after other people. But we did that to a detrimental - we did that in a selfish way, I think. So I would love if they, if a future generation could learn that. And I think that there's like a lot of important lessons about sharing information in reasonable ways. Thinking about, you know, how do we make decisions about what's in the interests of the public? And how do we do that not in a way that's intended to hurt people or harm people or take away their livelihoods or their connections? But how do we go about making good decisions at the right times? For maximum impact? So that, you know, everybody can feel like when it's time to, quote unquote, get back to normal life that everybody can get back to it? I don't know. I still don't, we don't know yet. How this is gonna end for us or like, what did it ever will look like where we're like, Oh, right. We're not constantly living under the shadow of it. It'll have morphed into something different in our experience. But I think I would hope that they could look at us and either learn from positive examples or from our failings, that it's important to look after one another, and that the only way out of it is to do that. To be selfish is only to make it go on and on and on.

Bailea Jackson 48:47

Yeah. I think that that's a very telling answer for an Albertan to like you were talking before. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much. That's the end of my questions. So I'll pause the recording.

End.