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As protected from the H1N1 as we can be.

2009-10-30 - 12:51 p.m.

Last night my household (including Uncle Bob) got the H1N1 flu shot. Well, the household minus Biscuit because he�s allergic to eggs. In fact, we all got it for Biscuit�s sake, seeing as how he can�t get the shot but is the most �at-risk� member of the household, what with his allergies and being underweight and prone to �reactive airway disease� (what they say when your kid needs a puffer because of occasional wheezing, but it hasn�t happened often enough yet in a calendar year to actually label them asthmatic). We�re hoping that the herd effect will be enough to protect him.

The catch with this is, of course, that he goes to daycare. And his care provider herself has a little girl who cannot get the shot for the same reasons he can�t get it. This means that their family is all planning to get the shot, but her daughter that can�t get immunized is school-age, so there�s no real barrier to her picking H1N1 up at school and bringing it home to my little Biscuit. So yeah, I�m worried.

Don�t get me wrong, I�m very glad to have been able to get protection for Grommet, as well as the rest of us, but it�s Biscuit that is most at risk if he gets it.

Now, you won�t likely know this unless you�re local, but there�s crazy wait times at the clinics that have just opened to vaccinate people. Like, a clinic that opens at 2:30 in the afternoon will have given out all 1400 tickets to people waiting a couple of hours before they even open. So, unless you get there 4 hours before opening, you don�t even have a chance to get the opportunity to wait for the shots. So how did we get in, you may ask?

Serendipity.

I�m not sure if I�ve talked about �my kind of luck� before, but, essentially, I�ve always found that if I needed something and just kept my eyes open and looked around, I could find a way to fill that need. I don�t mean things I wish for � I�m not the person who wins lotteries or usually walks away with the door prize. This works for things like pens when I need to sign the backs of cheques, knives to cut pies with at work, and dimes when I�m going to be 8 cents short for a purchase I want to make. When I head to a garage sale with a particular item in mind I�m vaguely surprised if I don�t run across it, because things like that usually work out for me.

And yes, I acknowledge that I make my own luck to a certain extent, just by keeping my eyes open. I�ve mentioned before how I�ve often found that when people encounter someone on the horns of a dilemma that they can help, they often do so. They want to help. It makes them feel good. So I might make a point of mentioning the issue I�m wrestling with to people who I don�t really know but with whom I�m having a casual conversation, particularly if the situation may hint that they might be able to help. Last night was a perfect example of this.

I was at story time at our local library. This library is located in the same complex that the H1N1 flu shots were being done. I remarked to another parent that there seemed to be a lot more kids than usual and he said it was because parents with numbers were killing time entertaining their kids there until they could get in the line for the shots. I lamented the crazy wait times and the fact that I had a small child who was high risk and couldn�t get the shot and so the rest of my household had to get it, but we couldn�t get in the lines early enough.

Well, didn�t this nice man have a few extra wristbands with early numbers on them that he�d gotten for some friends that couldn�t make it? And he offered me enough to cover my troupe. I called my husband and he grabbed Biscuit and Uncle Bob and came to join Grommet and I. Within an hour we�d all (minus Biscuit) had the vaccination over and done with.

I have to give props to the organizers of our local clinic, they kept everything running smoothly and there was surprisingly little ill-will in the air, considering the ridiculous wait times, the palpable anxiety of the people waiting, and the constant crying of children getting jabbed. We even saw one older child get carried out on a stretcher because he fainted.

Man, I�m so glad that getting those shots is over with.

Before - After


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