CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If you are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, you should keep in mind certain factors that will delay your appointment.

Having COVID-19 symptoms, testing positive for the virus and not having been cleared from isolation, and being in close contact with someone who had COVID-19 recently are some of the reasons your appointment will need to be scheduled for a later date.

Novant Health’s Senior Vice President Chief Safety, Quality and Epidemiology Officer Dr. David Priest says it will also be postponed if you received another vaccine in the past 14 days or received an antibody treatment for COVID-19 within the last 90 days.

“In some ways, it's a theoretical risk that your body is responding to a different kind of vaccine and needs to get through that period before you get a COVID vaccine. I think it’s more of a precaution than anything,” Priest says. “When people have monoclonal antibodies on board, their own immune system may not respond to the vaccine as well as we would like so that's why there's that delay there, but it has nothing to do with the safety of the vaccine itself.”

Dorothy Giles Ngongang, 75, didn’t have any factors preventing her from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Therefore, she became one of the first people in her age group vaccinated at Novant Health.

"I decided to get the COVID-19 vaccine to, number one, be safer because being in a compromised group with age, I felt that it was essential that I not, number one, put extra stress on the health care system,” Ngongang says.

She describes receiving the vaccine as surreal.

“It was just anticipation similar to you're getting the gift on the holidays or something,” Ngongang says.

The former science teacher also wanted to get her COVID-19 vaccine for her loved ones. Many of her family members are on the front lines.

“The next reason why I did it was so I can hug my children, so I could be with my children, my family, my grandchildren,” Ngongang says.

“Since we had been sequestered for so long and isolated, isolation is very painful, especially if you have so many people in the health care field and you can't comfort them, you can go and hug them and say things that are going to be OK.”

Ngongang already received the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

“I was excited. This is it I’m finished,” Ngongang says.

She recalls having minor side effects, mostly after receiving her second vaccine dose.

“I did have more of that feeling of I needed to sleep,” Ngongang says. “And I had those hot flashes, and they would come, but not a fever.”

Overall, Ngonang is doing well and is glad she’ll be able to see her loved ones again soon.

Ngongang plans to meet her family later this spring. Some of her loved ones also received the vaccine but all of them still plan to wear their masks and practice social distancing.

Currently in North Carolina, all health care workers and people 65 years old or older can be vaccinated.

For more information on where you can get a COVID-19 vaccine, click here: https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/vaccines/find-your-spot-take-your-shot.