Are y’all feeling a little freaked out by H1N1, the so-called “swine flu”? I’m not usually one to get my knickers in a twist over the panic-du-jour (Y2K, avian flu, computer viruses — why are all the major media panic-attacks linked to either computer or human viruses anyway?) but this one is slowly but surely unnerving me.<\/p>\n
Here’s five things that are freaking me out about H1N1.<\/p>\n
1. Healthy 40-year-olds<\/a> are apparently a high risk group, as are toddlers under two.<\/p>\n 2. Schools may close, kids have to stay home for up to a week. So, I have an (extremely generous) one week of family-related leave, of which I’ve used most days already. One kid gets sick, needs to stay home for a week, then you know it will be exactly a week later when the next kid gets sick and has to stay home for a week, and there’s no chance that would coincide with whatever time the school is closed, and the nanny happens to be in another risk group so I need to consider protecting her… thank goodness for the generous leave, I couldn’t imagine facing it otherwise.<\/p>\n 3. The seasonal flu shot may make you even more susceptible <\/a>to H1N1.<\/p>\n 4. I’m trying to keep the hyperbole from getting to me, but I do find myself conscious of all the shared surfaces I touch in a day — everything from the rails near the bus exit to the door handles at the Rideau Centre (I’ve actually started using my sleeve instead of my bare hand to push them) to the ATM keypad. It’s a slippery slope from here to OCD (and I haven’t even told you about my counting thing!)<\/p>\n 5. I’m on the fence about the whole vaccination thing. I get most of the standard vaccines for the boys, and I’m mildly opposed to the Jenny-McCarthy-fearmongering that goes on around vaccines, but vaccinating Lucas for this one gives me the willies. Our family pediatrician doesn’t recommend the seasonal flu vaccine for kids who are otherwise healthy, but he does recommend H1N1 vaccination, which is enough for me. Almost. I read every word of every article like this one<\/a>, though, trying to figure out which is the lesser of two evils. The one thing I can say is holy hell am I glad I’m not pregnant right now. <\/p>\n So what do you think? Will you get the H1N1 vaccine for yourself, and\/or your kids? Is the hype getting to you, or are you rolling your eyes at the Chicken Littles among us? Have you made any other sorts of preparations?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Are y’all feeling a little freaked out by H1N1, the so-called “swine flu”? I’m not usually one to get my knickers in a twist over the panic-du-jour (Y2K, avian flu, computer viruses — why are all the major media panic-attacks linked to either computer or human viruses anyway?) but this one is slowly but surely … Continue reading “Five things that are freaking me out about H1N1”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5-things","category-life-the-universe-and-everything"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2948"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2961,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948\/revisions\/2961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}