H1N1 Vaccination: The Obama Kids Are but Mine Isn't

President Obama's daughters have received their flu shots, but my seven year old is still blissfully ignorant of anything but the nightly back and forth of her parents on the topic. The province where we live in Canada is Alberta, and the government pledged over the summer to secure enough vaccine to inoculate every citizen. This last week clinics sprung up all over the province and people flocked to roll up their sleeves, waiting for hours in lines that stretched for blocks. The system is a rather clunky one, and health officials have made vague promises about tweaking it, but for the time being, those wanting H1N1 protection are being urged to come prepared to wait a while.

The clinic in my little town of Fort Saskatchewan is being staged through the Alberta Health Services office in the old Fort Mall. Health Services is just about the only business left standing in that sad old building as the majority of businesses fled for the newer strip malls on the other side of the highway years ago. On Monday evening, as my daughter and I were heading home from her ballet class, I noted that the usually deserted parking lot was nearly full and that a line to the clinic was visible through every front entrance we drove past. A friend later informed me that the line went from one end of the mall to the other and out the door at one point.

A mother whose twins are friends with my little girl had plans to get in line that evening, but the next day informed me that they didn't bother. The clinics run from 9 A.M. to 8 P.M. but by the time a parent can gather up children from school, or after school daycare or activities, it is too late to queue up with any success of getting in before they close for the day.

"Why aren't they just vaccinating the kids through school?" she wondered.

I have wondered that myself. If H1N1 is the threat to children they claim, wouldn't it make sense to take the vaccine to the place where most of them are every day?

We have the obligatory daily news reports up here of the healthy child who fell ill with H1N1 and was dead the same day or the next. It's hard not to hear or read about these kids and not panic, but with health officials urging those without underlying issues to wait a couple of weeks before getting in the lines at the flu shot clinics, thus allowing those who do first dibs, it doesn't make sense to rush out and find the nearest queue. My Kat is healthy. She doesn't have asthma or even a history of getting the flu every year. In her seven years, she's been sick with seasonal flu twice and both times bounced back with days. And even with the slowing growing media roar to just suck it up and get poked, we are still being told that H1N1 is no more deadly than the seasonal version of flu, which most of us never get vaccinated against.

The stories about dead or severely ill children take a parent's breath away but the statistics point out that it is adult women who are hardest hit and who are dying in numbers that should really give more pause. My healthy husband and wee daughter are not at risk the way I am or our twenty-something daughters are. The messages are too many and not matching up in a way that is helping me decide - and it's moms who are doing the deciding.

"I don't know what to do," I told my husband last night. He is adamantly opposed for himself but is leaving the decision of what to do about Kat and myself to me.

"And when you don't know what to do, the best thing is to do nothing for a while," was his response.

So, I know what my decision is, as Cinderella sang in the Sondheim musical, which is not to decide. Waiting and seeing is a choice too.

This is an original 50 Something Moms post by Ann Bibby of anniegirl1138 and Care2.com.