Okay, everyone who has been following my blog posts knows by now, I do not want to get the flu. I am more worried about the seasonal flu than the H1N1, formerly referred to as R2D2. I am not in the risk group for the H1N1.
I have never had a flu shot. I have been tracking the news for months. Recently some schools closed, some kids were hit hard and unless a family has good health insurance and a low co-pay, flu is flu and unless things go bad, no one knows exactly what kind of flu they had.
We installed hand sanitizers in our cars and pockets and have the most sterile hands in town. We have a healthy paranoia of using the pens at the check out counters. As a family, I suppose we are on Orange Alert.
Yesterday, I was at the gym, the last best place to find healthy people. The sign up on the Cardio Deck advises members to ‘clean the equipment before and after use.’ There is also a pump bottle of hand cleaner.
As I was leaving the gym, yesterday afternoon, the staff were chatting amongst themselves about who was left to call in because of the flu.
This comment pushed me off the fence and right into Big K-Mart. It isn’t so much the flu that bothers me, it is the possibility of pneumonia that comes just when a person thinks they can’t take anymore germ warfare.
So, in I go. One woman is ahead of me. When it is my turn I sit at a public table, use a public pen and fill out the paperwork. Then the fellow asks if I have a preferred arm. I am a very scrawny person and opted for a hip. No go, he isn’t supposed to do that, so he offered to use a shorter needle.
Yikes, just about the time I was going to swear, the shot was over. It felt like a pint of venom was forced into my arm. He warned me that the site of the injection might get sore. Then he asked me to wait there for observation because it was my very first ever flu shot.
When my throat didn’t close off I got my medical ID cards back and was free to go.
There are side effects of the flu shot and after last night I might skip next year’s installment of dead flu germs.
About two hours after my shot, I got a sore throat and my left inner ear was bothering me. I was alarmed and worried that I just got a shot for something I was already incubating.
By ten o’clock when I went to bed to read my ebook on my smartphone, I had begun to shiver uncontrollably. I thought I was freezing to death. I couldn’t read from all the shaking.
My husband and son made sure I was bundled up and finally I gave up trying to read my jittery book and burrowed into the blankets.
This morning, the shivers are gone, my throat feels okay and the injection site is sore but no big deal. Let me list the side effects for you and the Source Link is embedded over it.
What are the possible side effects of a flu shot?
primarily a low grade fever for 8 to 24 hours after you receive the shot.
a swollen, red, tender area around the vaccination spot.
Now, just because you fall off the fence and get the shot, doesn’t mean you are covered. It might take a few hours for the side effects to take hold but you are not fully protected for two weeks.
I am saying, if you get the shot, don’t put those hand sanitizers away and don’t get sloppy about what you touch and who you swap spit with. Besides the seasonal flu, the R2D2 is still out there, lurking, and common colds are no laughing matter.
I will post from time to time to let you know I survived the next two weeks. Till next time, don’t touch that.