Southern Health-Santé Sud Health Authority Winner of the Vax to Win Lottery
The morning they called to tell me I won the Vax to Win Lottery, I woke up my wife: “Honey, we just won the lottery!” We hugged! We were so happy. We’ve been to hundreds of socials over the years, entered draws, and we’ve never won a prize until now.
In October 2020, my mother moved into Parkview Place, a personal care home that had experienced an outbreak of COVID-19 where people died. There was no vaccine at the time. We worked hard to move her elsewhere, and we’re so grateful she didn’t contract COVID. My wife is also a stroke survivor, so she’s susceptible—it wouldn’t be good if she got COVID.
So my decision to be immunized for COVID-19 was easy, because I knew I was protecting my mom and my wife.
For our first dose, my wife and I had AstraZeneca administered at our doctor’s office in April. At first I felt general soreness, aches and pains, and then had a slight headache, but by day four I was back to normal. My second dose was Pfizer and I didn’t have any side-effects.
I work as an architectural specification writer with Stantec in Winnipeg. We have three adult children. We celebrated my lottery win with steak and lobsters with our child who lives locally. We’ll visit our other kids, who live in other parts of Canada, and go out for celebration dinners with all of them too. We’ll use the winnings to renovate our bathroom to make it more accessible for my wife.
I think vaccination is something we all should want to do to get our lives back to some semblance of normality. It’s terrible to think that you could be a carrier and infect somebody and cause them to die. I encourage all Manitobans to get the vaccine, and know that you won’t be needlessly propagating this disease.
