Flu Shot Clinics Are This Year’s “Baby Loves Disco”

It was a dark and stormy afternoon, and the kids and I were haunting aisle after spooky aisle of Halloween displays at our local kick-ass holiday store. All manner of ghosts and ghouls adorned every corner, not to mention crowds of college students shopping for their last-minute sexy witch costumes. But the scariest thing in that store for me was the cell phone in my coat pocket. That “People’s Court” ringtone never sounded so ominous.

Swine flu. H1N1. Hamthrax. Mr. Black was home from the doctor with a confirmed case of it. I called our pediatrician’s office in vain, hoping that maybe they finally had the vaccine on hand. Nope. The nurse instructed me to quarantine Mr. Black and spray down every surface with Lysol when we got home. And wash hands. For the love of Jeebus, wash those hands!

It felt a little like locking the barn door after the pigs escape, but we did it. For three days, Mr. Black holed up in our bedroom with Tamiflu and “The Wire” DVDs while we washed hands and waited for the other shoe to drop. I was ready to roll up my sleeves and get fluin’. It wouldn’t be easy, but we’d make it through with lots of orange juice, Tamiflu, and television. At least this way we’d have it over with before our big east coast Christmas trip, I told myself. Bring it on, swine!

And then . . . nobody got sick. Not so much as a cough or sneeze from the lot of us. (Let’s hear if for hand washing, I guess.) By Monday, Mr. Black was back at work and I was back to searching for the damn vaccine. Again.

Honestly, I almost would have preferred getting sick.

We’ve all got our parenting tasks that make us feel completely unfit for the job. For me, it’s the all the hoop-jumping and jockeying that often comes with helping our kids participate in society. You won’t see me lining up for the Best swimming lessons at the Best pool in town, and you won’t see me gaming my way to the top of any waiting list. Even if I wanted to, I lack the ability, connections, and general motivation to do so. And for the most part, it doesn’t really matter. But when it comes to important things – like school, or the basic health and well being of my kids – well then, sometimes I have to hold my nose and jump into the competitive fray.

I wasn’t sure where I stood on fray-jumping when the H1N1 hype began. On the one hand, it seemed like every other day there was some “CHILDREN DIE FROM SWINE FLU” headline screaming at me. On the other hand, I had a knee-jerk mistrust of any parenting-related media hype, not to mention knee-jerk mistrust of a brand-new vaccine that (as far as I could tell) was being rushed through production. And, of course, there was my knee-jerk skepticism about anything the other parents get revved up about. (I never made it to Baby Loves Disco, either.) In the end, though, I heard enough reassuring information from reliable sources to feel okay about vaccinating my kids. And those “CHILDREN DIE” headlines were freaking me out, embellished or not. I called the doctor’s office to make the appointments.

Appointments. Isn’t that adorable? Oh, to be so young and innocent again. Of course, the vaccine was nowhere to be found. I checked our pediatric clinic’s Web site every day and found the same “We don’t have it yet” message. Until one day, when it said “We are completely OUT of our supply of the H1N1 vaccine.” But . . . but . . .

I’d heard stories of parents dialing and re-dialing their pediatrician’s office for up to an hour getting only a busy signal. I suppose these persistent folks are the ones who got their hands on the vaccine before our pediatrician’s office even had a chance to update the Web site. Some of my friends in the high-risk category got desperate and drove up to the next county for vaccinations. I heard stories of people waiting in line at drop-in clinics for 5-8 hours. One of these lines even had clowns to entertain the children. And at a clinic in town just this weekend, I heard that people were getting in line as early at 4:00 a.m., effectively filling it up before it even opened.

When Mr. Black got sick and we faced the inevitable, part of me felt some sense of relief that at least we might be able to avoid this circus. It was out of my hands. Except, of course, it wasn’t. He recovered from his swine flu, the kids never got it, and we were back to square one.

As luck would have it, our pediatrician’s office finally got some more H1N1 vaccines and scheduled a drop-in clinic of their own – patients only, limited to ages 6 months - 35 months. Little Girl just made it in under the wire. The Boy, who was considerably less than heartbroken, would have to wait.

Driving up there on a cold November morning with a very confused and whiny girl in the backseat, I started to have some mixed feelings. It was about 90 minutes before the clinic was scheduled to open. Why did we leave so early? You never want to be the weenie who shows up first to one of these things.

Well, I’m proud to say that I was not that weenie. Not even close. The line was already spilling out of the parking lot and down the block, almost to the corner. The first folks in line told me they got there at 5:30 a.m. They seemed just the slightest bit defensive and anxious when I asked. Maybe they were worried that the back-of-the-line riff raff had come to storm the Bastille. Or maybe they were just worried I was going to make fun of them. Nobody wants to be that first-in-line weenie, really.

Little Girl and I settled in at the back of the line with my Backpack of Fun typically reserved for airports and long car rides. I noticed the smarter parents had worked out a strategy with one waiting in line while the other amused the kids off site somewhere, ready to join the line once it started moving. And just about everyone but me was drinking all manner of delicious coffee. Why, oh why had it not occurred to me to bring some coffee? Little Girl’s portable DVD player ran out of batteries not 20 minutes into her movie. (Yes, yes, I charged it the night before. I don’t know what went wrong.) She bitterly refused to eat a snack, read any of the books I brought, or wear her coat. It started to rain.

“Umm . . . I think I ready to go home,” Little Girl said politely, much to everyone’s amusement.

Poor kid. And what could I tell her? “Hey honey, after we sit outside in the cold for a few hours you might be lucky enough to get a needle in your leg that might protect you from one version of one flu this winter. Whee!” Again: How did I get here? This is not my beautiful house. At least I wasn’t the only parent there who grasped the absurdity of the situation. We all kind of rolled eyes and smirked at each other as we waited, practically forming air quotes around ourselves.

Eventually I persuaded Little Girl to put on her coat and we passed the time cuddling on the damp sidewalk singing raucous versions of her favorite songs. Before we knew it, the line was moving. And at the end of two hours, she had a sparkly band-aid on her thigh, a yellow lollipop in her hand, and sweet vaccinationy goodness working its way through her cute little bloodstream. And that was pretty much that.

So, what’s your flu story?