The H1N1 Vaccine Extravaganza

Has anyone tried to get the H1N1 vaccine???....It's practically impossible. My OB didn't even know where I could get it at this point.

Yesterday I set out to get it. I decided that even though the entire medical community believes that thimerisol (the mercury preservative that has received so much press) is completely safe, I have taken a better safe than sorry attitude. I was absolutely not going to get the vaccine with thimerisol. Now, this makes it even harder to get the vaccine, because there are very few of these around. Why? I'm really not sure. If there is any question about this mercury, why don't they just make all of the vaccines mercury-free? ....but that is a whole different topic.

So yesterday I went to the Arlington County clinic that was offering the vaccine. It opened at 8. I got there at 8:15 and I have never seen so many people in a very small space in my life. The lines went around the whole building and up and down the little hallways. I was told it was probably going to be a 4 hour wait. There were a million little kids running around, coughing, sneezing, etc. I could have probably gotten the swine flu just from standing in the line. It was 90 degrees in the very small building. There were no chairs or anything, which for a pregnant woman seems cruel.

At first, no one seemed to know if they had the thimerisol-free vaccine or not, so I decided to wait for a little while until I saw someone that looked official. When I finally felt like I was either going to faint or get sick from the heat, I asked someone to save my space in line and tried to find someone official. After quite a while of searching, I finally found someone who told me that they did NOT have the thimerisol-free vaccine. I left feeling very distraught and sick.

I devised a new plan: my mom and I were going to go to Anacostia (very scary area of DC) to go to their clinic this afternoon. Then, this morning, one of the teachers at the school I was at told me that she was able to get it yesterday at CVS. I immediately called several CVS's and finally found that the one in Arlington was one of only two in the state that still had vaccines....and they only had FORTY left!

I knew I was in a race against time. I arrived at the store and waited for 2 hours. This two hours seemed like nothing because there were chairs to sit in and it wasn't 90 degrees. Plus, I was just thrilled to know that I was going to get the shot. I left the store over joyed to have gotten the thimerisol-free vaccine! Phew!!...now I really hope it works!!!