The Low down on The Flu Shot

I’m going to post something today that is a little off the wall for my blog - - it isn’t a post about Toby’s latest development OR my father’s most recent memory lapse OR my mother’s literary graces. It’s a post about the flu shot. Go figure. (You may stop reading here if you like - -I won’t be offended. In fact, I’ll never know…)

I’m not writing this to preach or tell anyone what to do. I’m writing it because it’s at the forefront of everyone’s mind right now and something I am asked about 100 times a day. In fact, when I die, I think I may calculate up the number of hours of my life that I have spent discussing “the flu shot” and “vaccines” and the fact that they are NOT LINKED TO AUTISM, and ask The Man with the Authority for those hours of my life back.

In an attempt to preemptively salvage some of those hours, I thought I’d post all 2 of my cents on my blog for those of you who care to know my opinion.

The flu is coming. It is not just the sniffles and runny nose or vomiting and diarrhea as we so colloquially refer to “the flu” as. This flu is “the influenza”. As in the bug that leaves you feverish, achey, nauseated, short of breath and bedridden for about a week. As in the bug that killed 50 % of pregnant women in 1918 when it last reached pandemic proportions. As in the bug that we are STILL not very well equipped to treat despite the “marvels” of modern technology.

I very much respect the influenza and urge you to do the same.

Respecting “the influenza” means washing your hands, buying a thermometer, coughing into your forearm and not going to work if you are sick. It also means sucking up the fact that your arm may ache for a few hours afterwards, and getting the flu shot.

The flu shot is not perfect, but it’s not going to hurt you. And at the very least, it will protect your more vulnerable loved ones from contracting the influenza virus from you. A great analogy that I once heard was comparing the flu shot to your seatbelt. It won’t protect you from getting hurt, but in the event of an accident, it sure is better than NOT wearing one.

This season there are 2 influenza vaccines.

If you’re over 65 read this paragraph :

Lucky you! You’ve probably already encountered some form of the H1N1 influenza virus in your lifetime so you likely have natural immunity to it. You are less likely to contract the H1N1 virus BUT if you do, are more likely to have a worse outcome. People who have poor outcomes from “the flu” often do so because of a secondary pneumonia that they contract while their body is busy fighting the virus. In fact, 30% of mortality from H1N1 has actually been because of a bacterial pneumonia. My first word of advise to you is to you is to make sure you’ve had your pneumococcal vaccine. It’s offered to everyone over the age of 65 and is good for 10 years. My second piece of advice – get the regular flu shot. It’s still lingering around the corner, waiting for H1N1 to step out of the spotlight so it can have its annual moment of glory, and you are still it’s biggest target.

And last but not least, once your arms have recovered from the pneumonia vaccine and the regular flu shot, wait a bit and then get the H1N1 shot. Just for good measure.

If you are under 65 :

You are eligible for the H1N1 flu shot. The priority goes to pregnant women, children under the age of 5, health care workers, people with underlying medical conditions, and people in contact with any of the above. If you are not listed in the above group of people -- Welcome to Earth! I hope your return flight to Mars is uneventful.

There are 2 types of H1N1 vaccines available –the adjuvant and the non adjuvant. That’s a fancy name for “The kind we are stockpiling and the one we are not stockpiling”. Basically, the adjuvant kind is one that is mixed with a concoction that boosts our immune system so that we only require a small amount of it to reach the desired level of protection against it. The derivative that does the immune boosting is a natural ingredient of Vitamin E and some other compounds. The adjuvant vaccine, because it is dispensed in multi-dose vials, may also contains the preservative Thimerosal.

SHOCKED SILENCE

NO ONE PANIC. It’s not as bad as you think.

Thimerosal is a small small small (as in, if you put it on the table you wouldn’t be able to find it unless you put your Grandpa’s coke bottle glasses on and got your grade 8 microscope out and looked as hard as you could and then pretended the speck of dirt was it because you were tired of wearing your Grandpa’s glasses and squinting through a lense to see something that is so small it’s invisible) amount of mercury that is used to preserve the vaccine when dispensed in multi-dose vials. Probably my mother-in-law’s pickles have more thimerisal in them and I eat them by the jarful. I’m telling you - -marry into a family who knows how to pickle things and you’re set for life.

Anyway - -back to this tiny amount of thimerosal. This is the CULPRIT in the world’s STUPIDEST and LONGEST STANDING debate – that vaccines cause autism. It has been disproven COUNTLESS times, yet still parents are worried sick that the MMR vaccine causes autism. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Your kid turns 4 and before he starts kindergarten he gets is “pre kindergarten vaccines” (which, previously, contained a MICROSCOPIC amount of something that you had trouble spelling) and then he goes into kindergarten and 2 weeks later the teacher says, “Hey- this kid doesn’t socialize normally” so OBVIOUSLY it’s either what he had for dinner the night before or the particulate amount of the chemical that is hard to spell that he got 2 weeks ago. Couldn’t POSSIBLY be due to the fact that he is being faced with his first real socialization-under-pressure-experience. Nope - probably that Thimerosal. Even though we’ve disproven it a million times over.

We (the collective WE) even went as far as taking Thimerosal OUT of childhood vaccines and yet still, I find myself explaining this OVER and OVER and OVER again to patients. No, your child will NOT get autism from their childhood vaccines.

I don’t actually mind when patients do ask about this topic. I’m just using the monotony of the repetitive explanation to prove my point to you; that the flu shot is benign and the fact that it may contain thimerosal is not a good enough excuse NOT to have the H1N1 flu shot.

I suspect my post is long enough. I leave you with these concluding words :

We don’t know WHAT is in store for us this year as flu season approaches. Hindsight will be 20/20 and I bet you’d rather say, “Gee, that wasn’t a pandemic after all - -too bad I had to get an extra vaccine this year for nothing” vs. “Wow. My whole family is dead. Maybe I should have had the H1N1 vaccine…”

Nuff said.

Toby wears socks.

Have I mentioned that Toby is a man’s man? Just in case we weren’t PERFECTLY CLEAR on his place as a man in this world, he reinforced it to me this morning as I was getting dressed.

“Bra! Mommy Bra!”

He NEVER gets that excited when I put any OTHER item of clothing on- - just the bra.

In an attempt at redirection I calmly answered,

“Yes, mommy wears a bra. Does Toby wear a bra?”

“NO!” he looked appalled, “Toby – SOCKS!”

Love, according to my 19 month old

I had to say goodbye to Toby for a few days today as he’s off to visit with his cousins in Chatham for the weekend while I host a Stagette party for one of my good friends. So this morning when I left for work I lingered a little on the goodbyes. I gave him an extra long hug and 100 extra kisses and when I got to the door, turned around and said, “I love you!” one last time.

Toby, who was at the couch by this time, responded to my declaration of love by smiling and then wrapping his arms around himself in a huge hug before throwing his hands over his eyes and then blowing me a kiss.

Toby is told quite regularly that he is loved but he does not say it back. It’s a hard concept to teach a 19 month old who is still barely grasping the concepts of colours. And we never DID teach him baby sign language. But somehow he conveyed back to me exactly what he thinks the definition of love is: loving smiles, warm hugs, games of peekaboo and blowing someone a kiss as they walk out the door.

I think it’s a good definition for motherhood as well….

Damn you, winter attire!!!

How do you decide what to wear each day? The weather? The occasion? After work plans?

Not me - -my daily attire depends SOLELY on the carefully calculated risk stratification and probability score that my brain frantically calculates in the short 5 minutes of dressing-showering-accessorizing-waking-up-me-time that I am allotted each morning. It’s this probability score that helps me to determine the daily potential of snot/food spillage from my son. Some days, when he’s particularly green, snotty and overtired, I go for the casual look. On other days, when my mom is around, I branch out to my nicer clothes and even sometimes wear a blouse.

I THOUGHT I had my self-dressing system down pat until today.

Today was the day I made my fatal error.

If I were a computer I would have frozen, crashed, beeped, blank screened and then completely shut down and ignored the world no matter how many times someone pressed my reboot button.

It was THAT bad.

I woke up to a nice white blanket of fresh snow. Which made me happy - -mistake number 1 – NEVER let your good mood tempt you into wearing something that should not be worn. ALWAYS REMEMBER the CHAOS that lives with you.

Mistake number 2 - -I got wooed by the weather. It was snowing and sunny and bright. And I was cheerful for those 5 minutes of dressing, and decided I’d waited LONG ENOUGH to bring out my new light pink knit sweater and lovely pleated-likely-will-require-dry-cleaning plaid pants. Because they were my new winter clothes and I couldn’t wait ONE MORE DAY to wear them.

Those of you who don’t have kids may be thinking that there’s nothing WRONG with wearing your nice new winter clothes on the fresh crisp first day of snow fall. AHA! There’s the CATCH! Because not only did the first fresh day of snowfall mean a new outfit for ME - -it ALSO meant a new outfit for Toby…specifically, winter boots, a hat, his winter jacket and….mitts.

We had numerous temper tantrums this morning. The first three being about the boots, the hat and the mitts and the fourth and fifth ones being about his then runny nose being wiped on my clean pants and new sweater. (Respectively.)

Finally, we reached a snotty-nosed compromise and settled for no hat, no mitts and his RAIN boots. (He DID wear his winter jacket – that was my only victory of the morning) I assured him that ALL of his friends would be wearing winter boots but hey, if he wanted to be the ODD BALL of his daycare, he could go ahead and wear his shiny RAIN boots if he wanted to.

As we pulled up to daycare, my lovely new winter outfit covered in snot and drool and his lovely new winter accessories scattered all over the car, I prepared how I was going to justify sending my kid to daycare in RAIN boots while it was SNOWING outside.

But I didn’t have to - -the line of outdoor shoes that morning consisted entirely of….RAIN BOOTS.

So apparently we’re NOT the only family suffering from winter-transition-crisis.

Thankful…

This weekend posed such a dichotomy in my heart that I need to blog about it just to make some sense of it...

Friday afternoon we headed back to our old stomping ground; Thunder Bay. It was a reunion. It was a homecoming. It was a wedding. And it was over in the blink of an eye.

There is something about coming home to Thunder Bay that makes me feel jubilant and yet so settled; every time we go back it is as if we have never left. The conversations with friends pick up without missing a beat and there is a comfort and ease to our visits that is so refreshing. And the town itself - with its rugged beauty and quiet modesty; I am always so proud to say I once lived there.

Rob and I lived in Thunder Bay for 3 years. It was the town we moved to together and shared our first home in. During those 3 years we shared the ups and downs of residency, being away from family and friends back home, wedding planning and job hunting. It was in Thunder Bay that Rob and I became a family.

Our life in Collingwood is everything we want. With the ski hills and the Bruce trail it has the beauty and activities of Thunder Bay without the 17hour commute to family. We have both found our dream jobs and we have a community of friends we couldn’t live without.

And we have Toby.

At the wedding I reconnected with friends I haven’t seen since medical school and residency. I gushed to them in my usual superlative ways about Toby and life in Collingwood. (I even carried my iPhone with me to provide video evidence of my crazy son…yes, I WAS that mom…) And yet as we left Thunder Bay on Sunday morning, well rested, fed and sauna-ed and my voice HOARSE from talking, I felt a strange sadness come over me.

Wouldn’t life be so much easier if you got married and worked in the town you grew up in? Then you’d never have to MISS all of the other places you’ve grown accustomed to, and you’d never find yourself trying to decipher the strange contented sadness that lingers after what should have been a purely EXCITING weekend away.

I know deep down that I am lucky to feel this way; to know there are numerous places in the world I can call home and feel just as comfortable in as my own. It reminds me of a quote I used in my highschool graduation blurb,

“How lucky we are to have loved something so much that saying goodbye could be so hard…”

Thanks for a great weekend, Thunder Bay. We’ll be home again, soon.

Cow Gazing

Just your regular rainy Saturday afternoon here. We were all going a little stir crazy being in the house all weekend, soToby and I decided to take a road trip to Singhampton to get the Globe and some Sherry (for the soup Rob is making...) and on the way home I casually decided to take a back road detour to see if we could find any cows.

Why, you ask? Do I ALWAYS go looking for cows? Well, no, not USUSALLY…until about a week ago after we took Toby to the Great Northern Exhibition and we spent (what felt like) HOURS gawking at the cows. They are now officially his FAVOURITE animals and EVERY TIME we get in the car he asks, “cows? COWS?” And USUALLY, no, we’re NOT going to see cows. So today I thought, “Why not? Lets go find some cows.”

I am happy to report that the cows on Concession 8 were out in full force despite the rain. And they were up to all the usual exciting-things-that-cows-do, such as standing still, eating grass and mooing. JACKPOT.

Toby INSISTED that we get out of the car to see them and so we did. In the rain. He then questioned WHY we were not sitting DOWN to see the cows (as we had done at the exhibition). After I’d convinced him that standing on the side of the deserted road in the pouring rain was good enough, he proceeded to watch. And watch. And watch. After 10 minutes of WATCHING (in the rain) I made the offhand suggestion (SUGGESTION) that MAYBE we leave....BIG mistake.

And so we kept watching. Because the only thing that makes cow-watching-in-the-rain-on-concession-8 WORSE is to do it while trying to hold down a temper tantruming 19 month old.

And so the cow watching continued with such exciting moments as the mommy cow peeing and one of the baby cows mooing. And, occasionally, they would walk a few steps to find more grass.

Fascinating.

I was 5 seconds away from getting the cooking Sherry out of the car when Finally – FINALLY – my silently-mesmerized boy opened his mouth to point out, “Cows….Hat? Shoes?”

What? SERIOUSLY? We stand out here in the RAIN on Concession 8 watching COWS for 30 minutes and all you can come up with is HAT? SHOES?

But then I got it…and it was indeed a good question…why IS it that this particular species is allowed out in the rain WITHOUT their hat and shoes on? Everyone ELSE has to wear them!

As we chatted about why cows don’t wear hats and shoes EVEN in the rain, we made our way over to the car and I was FINALLY allowed to leave. As I got him into the car seat Toby was still straining to get one last glimpse of his mirage of cows and I said, “Say bye-bye to the cows!” Two minutes later I heard his first 5 syllable sentence; “Bye bye to the cows!”

I guess it was an enjoyable outing afterwards. And I didn’t even have to crack the sherry.