I'm not sure when getting vaccinations became quite so polarizing, but I've long been a proponent of them. Both kids, because they were preemies, had a vaccination a month for 6 months against a common "cold-like" bug that can hospitalize and kill premature babies. And, these were not "easy" shots. They hurt...a lot. Screaming, swollen leg, crankiness. But, this small pain was worth it to prevent a potentially life-threatening illness.
After this, it was the normal course of childhood vaccinations. I even gave Faith the chicken-pox vaccine when you had to pay for it. (And, if you want to start a debate, toss out that little gem in a roomful of moms. Yikes.)
No surprise then that I took the kids to get vaccinated at for H1N1 today. Blake's in the high-risk group (under 5 years), my sister-in-law is 8 months pregnant, and we have great-grandparents to visit, so we are getting vaccinated for ourselves, and for others. I've also had the experience of holding a barely breathing child in my arms while we waited for an ambulance. If there's any way to avoid that happening ever again, I'll grab it with both hands.
So, this morning, we packed up snacks, activities, and a large blanket and headed out to one of the region's flu shot clinics. We arrived at 8:00 am, for the 9:00 am opening, and were already in a line of well over 300 people.
Faith bundled up in the blanket and we chatted with our line-mates and chased Blake around. I ended up holding him for a lot of the time as it was windy and cold. He did pretty well in the line, but after about 3 hours, it was getting a bit much for him.
We waited outside for about 2 and half hours until we made it into the school, where another long line awaited us. But at least we were out of the wind. The blanket then turned into a little bed/sled for Blake to sit on as we pulled him along the winding line-up. Everyone was remarkably patient and friendly for what was essentially a giant pain in the butt for all of us. But, it was a loooong wait. At one point, a woman in her fifties fainted about 10 people away from us, so the paramedics that were on site came down and loaded her up onto a stretcher, oxygen mask and all. (Those of left behind just hoped she could get her flu shot before she left, especially after waiting all that time. We were partly joking, but mostly serious.)
When we finally made it into the cafeteria for the flu shot, we first headed over for someone to enter our info into a computer, which then was fed directly into the nursing stations where we had our shots. Quite efficient actually. Of course, this was when Blake said, "I have to go poop!" Gah! So, we trotted off to the bathroom and then popped back to finally get the shot
Blake was a total trooper. This picture is of him before getting his shot, fooling around for the camera.
He didn't even cry when he got poked with the needle. He just had a "what the heck was that?" look on his face. I got my shot next, and my very own bandaid. Then Blake cried...he didn't get a bandaid! Faith was last. By this time, she just wanted to get the whole thing over with. We were all tired. Our total time invested? 5 hours from start to finish.
But, in Faith's words from last night, "It's better to get a shot that to be dead."
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