I'm not big on vaccines in general. I don't get them every year for my dogs, the kid is the only one we keep up to date and she has to be on a modified schedule because she had a reaction. Not a bad reaction but full body hives tend to freak a parent out and so we no longer give her the 5 in 1 shot. I don't believe the body has a good response to vaccines when inundated with that many all at once anyway but she still gets her vaccines. I'm not that much of a hippie ya know. I don't think we need to get measles mumps or rubella running rampant across the nation anymore than the next person. The dogs? Please, they have had so many vaccines in their life they have the antibody. I just get them rabies because rabies is required by law.
I know the vaccine debate amongst parents is a fiasco and lets face it, extremists on either end are just extremists, doesn't make much sense to me once you go that far off the deep end. The flu vaccine is a whole different animal of debate though so once you add the piggy pandemic well, lets face it, there will be a debate.
We (as in my little family of 3) had the flu vaccine before. Once. And only because we have a neighbor that happens to be an MD and he brought home 3 nasal vaccines for us. Yes he's a doctor and he believes in the flu vaccine. We don't get sick often, the kid has the occasional sniffles but she's in elementary school. I think there's a law somewhere stating that they must be in a perpetual state of sniffles between the grades of kinder through 5th. The hubby is asthmatic and while he should have a some sort of immuno-compromise because of it he doesn't seem to do so bad. Me, I am randomly sick but really not that often and not normally bad either.
This year we made the decision to all get the flu shot. And the H1N1 shot. Oh yeah, we were going for gold this year. Wanna know something too? We lived through it. Wanna know something else? We found the H1N1 shot available. Apparently there's been a problem with that. CNN had an article about a clinic in Sunnyvale CA that had lines that wrapped around the building. Mind you there were only 1000 shots available and the line had thousands of people in it. Yeah, plural. I don't know if the country really understood how serious people were going to take this pandemic thing. Too bad they don't have much vaccine available. I know we had it here at our clinic and the CPA's daughter drove down from Austin to get it here since she couldn't find it in Austin. You know, our state capitol. Makes sense huh? Panic the people and then make the solution unattainable? Gotta love the US gov.
Now might I mention that when we got our first round of the H1N1 at work it was only like 100 doses. The priority for these vaccines read something like younger than 5 yrs, older than 65 yrs, pregnant women, and health care workers. I'm pretty sure they sent that first round so that the health care workers (you know, us) could get it before all the sick people came in and we spread it along our other clients. Makes sense? Yeah unfortunately our clinic is ass backwards and they said that the vaccines are only for our patients. Which you know, they need but really, there's a reason that health care workers are at the top of the list. We already had 1 provider get it and who knows how many she infected because she worked right on through it. BTW, I hate people that do that. If you're sick get the hell out. I don't want your disease. Novel huh?
So did I get my H1N1 vaccine from my work? No of course not. I had to bail sometime in the middle of the day when I found it at an urgent care clinic half way across town. Fortunately they also had the nasal version so I pulled my kid out of school and got it for her too. See the logic there? Don't vaccinate your workers, they get sick, or they have to take time off to get the vaccine somewhere else. The morons in charge here, I swear.
We did get a second round of H1N1 in though and the hubby came in and got it too. Of course he managed to get a sore throat 3 days later, maybe a mild form of the flu. The vaccine is not an end all be all. I haven't had any issues with it and the kid hasn't either. Both the hubby and I got the injectible version and that is a killed virus. The kid got the live nasal and she is good too. Of course she's younger than 9 so she needs to get a booster in 4 weeks. Do you think they will have a dose available in 4 weeks? Who knows. I'm not sure the booster is all that big of a deal anyway so if she doesn't get it I won't fall apart. Unlike some parents will I'm sure. If they remember....
So how about ya'll? Neurotic about flu vaccines? Pro or con? Are they from the devil? Conspiracy theory anyone? Did you already get it? Were you able to even find the H1N1? FYI, the real reason that I made the whole family get both the regular and H1N1 vaccines is because we are trying to get pregnant and I do not want to get the flu in my house if I get pregnant. That would just make me all kinds of nervous and you're only paranoid if they're not out to get you.
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