2009-10-22

Back in September, I did as I have always done, and called to get Amy and Emily a flu shot. This one is seasonal. I called to get mine as well. Both of our doctors do this clinic thing, where you make an appointment for one of the scheduled days. I called later than I should have for the girls though and was only able to get an appointment during school hours for today. Yesterday the office called to say they were canceling the clinic because they had no vaccine. Now, I was upset because now I have to scramble to get the girls a shot AND I had promised a special lunch after the shots AND I had taken the day off from work, because husband is out of town. So I posted to facebook that I was upset because there was no seasonal flu vaccine left. One of my local friends suggested that perhaps we'd just have to rely on our bodies natural immunity to get us through. You know what? That's not helpful. The entire concept of a vaccine is that your body is
presented with (in theory) a safe version of the germs and your body then learns--ahh this is a germ, we can fight it using X strategy. Then when your body sees the big version it says Aha! I know you, pulls out the supersonic gun it has developed in the secret lab near your armpit (that's why you get the shot in your arm after all :) ) and blows it away. At least that's my take on the concept.

The other thing that came up was the big discussion to one of my friends status updates about how the local schools should close in this "crisis." The commenter (who is not a friend of mine, but because yuppieville is a small town, I know who she is) said that the school was being irresponsible by staying open when so many kid were sick. Ok, well the thing is that some classes have been just decimated by this flu. In Amy and Emily's school there was a fifth grade class who usually sits 24, who started the day with 15 and by the end of the day were down to 5. Amy and Emily's class had 8 out a good chunk this week (Emily being one of them). Other classes, have not been hit as hard the district's overall enrollment has held at 90%--which means just 10% absent.

It was argued back that instead the school should be sending infectious disease notices when there is a confirmed case. In our own family Emily came down with something I'd classify as very mild novel flu. She recovered quickly enough that I didn't take her into the doctor. So she never was tested for flu. Although I believe that if I had called and brought her in, she still would not have been tested. So did she have it? Who knows. Amy didn't get it (yet). I have a friend (dr Mom) whose daughter has been sick and into the doctor three times before she was tested for "flu". It was positive, but I don't know if that means H1N1 or not. But she's very sick. So, I don't know how effective the communicable disease form can even be. But it is hard to sit here and feel totally unable to control or really prevent what's happening. Trust me, you can tell a six year old to wash her hands. You can tell them not to pick their noses. You can tell them to sneeze and cough into their sleeves. But they won't do it all the time. They are six!

I'd gotten used to and learned how to eliminate all the notifies about mafia wars, farm town, bejewled, be blitzed or whatever. I'm ok with the idea that a small percentage of my friends list are so conservative that they think GW is too liberal. I mean I went to high school in a small town. I'm also ok with the idea that many of them have very different ideas about the world than I do. I guess I just need to get used to the stupid, not thought out comments.
You know like the rest of the internet.

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