Talking Flu Shots for National Immunization Month

This is a sponsored post, but the opinions are all mine.

August is National Immunization Awareness Month.

 

Immunizations are important to me. This is actually a gross understatement. Through my work with Shot@Life, I have seen life saving vaccines given to children in villages in Uganda. I have seen mothers weep holding their child’s pink immunization records. I myself have benefited from being vaccinated as a child in India.

Even stateside, I have seen the power of vaccines. And sadly, I’ve experienced the power disease has without the benefit of vaccines. I suffered whooping cough a few years ago. It was a 10 month ordeal that left me advocating and fighting for my own health. I experienced vocal chord damage and missed almost a year of work. My young son had it too. It’s a terribly frightening thing to watch your toddler cough so hard and struggle to breathe that you are left wondering if his next breath will be his last. I’ve never written about this experience, and now’s not quite the time. It’s a difficult experience to rehash, as you can imagine. I am reminded, however, of another time that illness plagued our home.

Mac Daddy and I both had the flu. At the same time. I accused him of having a man cold and offered no sympathy. I was dismissive and irritated, thinking he was searching for a pass. It’s not my proudest moment as a wife. Karma kicked me in the ass for that and sucker punched me with the same ailment. We had two young sons at the time and no family in town to help. Few friends will offer a hand when your house is marked by caution tape. Mac Daddy and I have never been so sick. We could barely turn our head just to change position in bed. We had no one to turn to, yet had these two small kids to care for.

There were times I literally crawled through the hall to pour them milk and make a peanut butter sandwich. For days the children ate nothing substantial, and their eyes must have bled from all the TV they watched. We had no choice. Mac Daddy and I took turns dragging ourselves to the car to drive the boys to school and relied on friends to bring them home, no one getting out of the car, of course. It was the only time I seriously worried about our ability to parent. We were just so. damn. sick. My only lucid thought was to keep the boys healthy. I did not wish to plague them with this flu. I have never felt so bad in my entire life. I still don’t have adequate words to describe the experience.

Mac Daddy and I had not had a flu shot that year.

 

When I volunteered with pediatric bone marrow transplant patients I was required to  get a flu shot. I had not continued this practice when I moved and stopped volunteering. Bird and Deal did get flu shots. It’s nonsense that Mac Daddy and I did not. We have never made that mistake again. What’s so scary is not only how sick we were, but how unable we were to care for our children. I don’t think we were negligent or harmful, but we were not in any shape to provide proper care beyond barely functioning to feed them and make sure the doors were locked. It’s times like that I envy my friends who have family in town to lend a hand. I shudder thinking about the experience and try not to play the “What if?” game in my head.

We have never missed a flu shot since.

 

Parents, here are some important points from the CDC:

• To protect against the flu, the first and most important thing you can do is to get a flu vaccine for yourself and your child.
• Vaccination is recommended for everyone 6 months and older.
• It’s especially important that young children and children with long term health conditions (like asthma, diabetes, or disorders of the brain or nervous system) get vaccinated. These children are at higher risk of serious flu complications (like pneumonia) if they get the flu.
• The flu can be very dangerous for children. Each year about 20,000 children younger than 5 years old are hospitalized from flu complications, like pneumonia.
• The risk of serious flu complications requiring hospitalization is highest among children younger than 6 months of age, but they are too young to be vaccinated. The best way to protect them is to make sure people around them are vaccinated.
• CDC recommends a three-step approach to fighting the flu: annual vaccination, everyday preventive actions, and use of antiviral drugs to treat flu, if your doctor prescribes them.

And seriously, don’t take handwashing for granted. Soap. Water. Scrub.