I have gotten a flu shot every year for as long as I can remember. There was never a question about whether or not I would get one this year or if Rudy and Caleb would get one. I work with kids for crying out loud - I'm pretty susceptible to every illness that goes around. Now that we have Caleb too, we get daycare germs mixed in with the school germs that Rudy and I naturally bring home. We are just a high risk family when it comes to getting sick. It only makes sense that we would get flu shots.
This year, we have an added risk: H1N1 virus, AKA: the swine flu.
(I realize that there is really nothing funny about this strain of flu, but that picture above makes me laugh every single time I see it.) So, the debate this year among the Mom community is whether or not to get the H1N1 vaccination and whether or not to give it to our kids. As with any highly covered news story, this one has gotten a little out of control. Let's face it: some people are freaking out. I'm not. I'm not panicked about getting the dreaded swine flu, but I am concerned about it - just like I am about getting the traditional flu. The word from the medical community in general is that the swine flu is not any more dangerous than traditional flu, unless you fall into one of these categories: pregnant women, children under 5, asthmatic or the elderly. Hold the phone, people. Our family falls into the first 2 categories. We have a 3 year old in daycare (high risk demographic in a high risk environment), a middle school teacher (high risk environment) and a pregnant woman who works in an elementary school (high risk demographic in a high risk environment). Hmm...so what can we do to keep from getting this potentially fatal to our family illness? Well, there's a vaccination. And that vaccination comes with all sorts of controversy.
What's a pregnant mom to do? Who do I listen to? There are so many opinions and so many people saying it's untested, it's too new, nobody knows the side effects, etc, etc, etc. I always try to stay level-headed about this sort of thing. I happened to mention to my mom that I was trying to make an informed decision about it and that all I knew to do was to trust my OB. I had pretty much decided that I would do whatever Dr. Ford suggested, because she is the educated member of the medical community that I trust in this situation. Then Mom had a brilliant idea. She called a family friend's daughter who is a pediatrician at Arkansas Children's Hospital and just happens to also be pregnant. Karen's advice gave me much more peace of mind about my decision to get the H1N1 vaccination for myself and the rest of my family. She said that the risks of not getting the shot far outweigh the risks of getting it. The vaccine is very similar to other flu vaccines, but it has been altered just slightly to be effective for this particular strain of flu. The shot has been deemed safe for pregnant women - especially those past the first trimester. And - the flu is so rampant that the emergency rooms are beyond maximum capacity with people who have flu symptoms. Another person told me that her OB told her that there are 5 pregnant women in the ICU at UAMS who are on ventilators because of the swine flu.
So, my decision is to get the shot as soon as it's available. In the meantime, we'll continue to wash our hands frequently and pray that we don't contract the virus before we can get the shots. Of course, we'll also pray that the vaccinations are as safe as we feel like they are and that no harm will come to any of us (including Nola) as a result of them. I just have to trust my gut on this one.
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