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“I felt stiff.” Doctor among first to get COVID-19 vaccine talks about her experience

PITTSBURGH — Peel back the mask and meet 42-year-old Dr. Sylvia Owusu-Ansah. She’s a wife and a mother to 5-year-old Samantha and 13-year-old Sierra. Owusu-Ansah loves her girls, but she also loves taking care of her patients at as pediatric emergency physician at UPMC Children’s Hospital.

“Just the thought of bringing something home that could potentially devastate my family was really hard to deal with,” said Owusu-Ansah, UPMC Children’s Hospital EMS Medical Director. “You want to go to work and focus on your patients. With this particular virus, it kind of shifts your thought process, and you feel like you’re a little bit selfish for thinking about yourself or your family, but it’s the reality.”

For health care workers like her, this was a real struggle for months. Then on Dec. 14, 2020, Owusu-Ansah became one of the first health care workers in Pennsylvania to receive Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. Each day, she documented her symptoms on social media.

“I AM STILL HERE!”

“Full Transparency Day #2 post vaccine ...”

“Mild muscle aches and pains with left arm soreness.”

“Definitely by like Day 4 (or) 5, I was feeling back to my normal self for that initial vaccination,” said Owusu-Ansah. “I felt really, really good.”

On Day 11, she recorded a video with her family to show how she was feeling.

“You can see how I am feeling on this dance video with family.”

Fast-forward to Day 22, Jan. 5, 2021, when Owusu-Ansah received her second shot.

“A couple hours later, I started to feel a little left arm soreness, and then exactly 12 hours later, I started to have really bad muscle aches and chills,” said Owusu-Ansah. “I felt stiff, like I couldn’t move for about a couple hours. I took some ibuprofen again, and then I felt back to myself. Literally within a couple of hours.”

Owusu-Ansah says she felt worse after the second dose. So did a majority of her co-workers.

“It’s not the virus itself,” said Owusu-Ansah. “It’s a dead protein of the virus that is used to activate our immune system. The immune system is further revved up and does the things it usually does when we get sick, in the way of fever and chills.”

Owusu-Ansah wants people to ask questions and do their research. She certainly did.

“I will be the first to say that I was a skeptic and I kind of wanted to watch and see what was happening,” said Owusu-Ansah. “But then, in looking at the entire picture, there is no other virus, no other germ that has devastated the globe as much as SARS-CoV-2.” SARS-CoV-2 is another name for the COVID-19 virus.

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She hopes people start trusting the science.

“I feel great and confident, and now my goal is to help everybody else in getting the vaccine, whether that be changing their perception or physically getting it,” said Owusu-Ansah. “When we think about solutions, let’s work together between the vaccine and our public health initiatives to get rid of this villain.”

Owusu-Ansah has also been very active in trying to build trust for the COVID-19 vaccine in the Black community and has hosted several virtual town halls on this topic.

“Our community is being hit the hardest, three times,” said Owusu-Ansah. “Meaning the Black community, more than any other community in the means of illness and death. If we don’t do anything, we are going to eliminated. We are going to be eliminated by this virus.”

The next virtual town hall is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 28 at 5 p.m. with the Somali Bantu community.