{"id":3114,"date":"2013-03-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/condition-vaccines-my-two-day-quest-to-get-my-family-the-h1n1-vaccine\/"},"modified":"2013-03-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-22T00:00:00","slug":"condition-vaccines-my-two-day-quest-to-get-my-family-the-h1n1-vaccine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/condition-vaccines-my-two-day-quest-to-get-my-family-the-h1n1-vaccine\/","title":{"rendered":"My Two-Day Quest to Get My Family the H1N1 Vaccine"},"content":{"rendered":"
I didn't agonize long over whether to immunize my family against swine flu<\/a>. Earlier this year, I wrote about the flu's deadly effects on pregnant women<\/a>, and I want to make sure that my family and I didn't contribute to the problem.<\/p>\n If the risks weren't convincing enough, the moans and groans from other mothers whose families have contracted the flu are quite motivating. "Say good-bye to a month of your life," they told me.<\/p>\n Our pediatrician also warned us of very high fevers (up to 106°!) , accompanied by a sore throat<\/a> and cough. And the news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not promising: The number of confirmed cases is rising<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to the CDC<\/a>, my family is a high-risk group—we "qualify" for the shot before others in our community. Not only are we caring for a baby under 6 months of age, but our two other children are under age 5.<\/p>\n So I should have no problem getting the vaccine, right? Not so fast. As it turns out, at least 25 city and county health agencies in California have received less than half of the vaccine doses they ordered, according to the Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/a>. Here's how my hunt for the vaccine went down.<\/p>\n No room at the pediatrician's<\/strong> "We won't have it until sometime in November," his office told me.<\/p>\n So I called our urgent care clinic, and they did <\/em>have some doses. "We can be there in 15 minutes," I said.<\/p>\n "Hurry," said the receptionist.<\/p>\n I pulled the baby from her high chair and loaded my pajama-clad children into the car, driving as fast as the law allowed. The waiting room was jammed, and the receptionist was crying.<\/p>\n "Sorry, sorry, sorry," she was telling people. "If you're not a current patient, we can't vaccinate you."<\/p>\n I am a current patient, but my kids are not, and they were only vaccinating children.<\/p>\n "Sorry, sorry, sorry," she said through her tears, returning to the phone.<\/p>\n "Go to hospital across the street," she finally told the assembled group of upset parents. "They have 40,000 doses arriving today. You can get in line after their staff."<\/p>\n We headed there immediately, only to be told that the story was a complete fabrication. "We wish that were true," the hospital operator chuckled when I asked her about it later. "I can't get the vaccine either!"<\/p>\n
So when I heard that the H1N1 vaccine had arrived in our community in California three weeks ago, I clicked my heels and called my pediatrician to make an appointment.<\/p>\n