What a prick!

I don't particularly like needles, but I don't have a pathological fear of them the way some people do. Never the less, whenever I have to get an injection, I can't watch the needle go through my skin. Once it's in, I have no problem looking at it and seeing either my blood being sucked out or the medicine (or whatever) going in. I know that whatever the purpose, the jab will help - in one way or another.

Like being vaccinated. I had all my jabs as a kid, and NEVER got any of those horrid childhood illnesses. But, I got chicken pox when I was 29 which was HORRID. I still bear the scars on my face. (People think I must have had bad acne as a kid... if only they knew... my face used to be umblemished and really rather lovely. Now it's scarred. C'est la vie, I guess.) I stopped counting the spots when I got to the base of my neck and had already counted over 200 on just my face and the front of my neck alone.

So I'm pretty much in favour of kids getting their jabs. I would hate for Nathan to get mumps as an adult and become sterile. My scars are really nothing. Not being able to father a child is pretty bad. I would hate for Nellie to get German measles while pregnant and give birth to a baby who is blind as a result.

There's been an outbreak of measles in SA just recently, because parents have failed to immunize their kids properly (partly because of that fallacious scare about the triple jab for MMR being linked to autism, and partly because they think they're out of danger). So much so, that the government has taken the action of going into all schools and creches to vaccinate the kids. Of course, typical of the local government, the implementation of this has been very poorly managed. But for the sake of the kids, we grin and bear it. My precious Nellie was very brave. She said it was sore, but she didn't cry.

Of course, our yearly flu jabs are done around now. I waited as long as I could after recovering from my cold to get mine done. The school offers it for free, and I get one because I find it usually does protect me later in the flu season. I got mine last week, eventually. Wouldn't you know it though? My system is still so weak that I got full blown flu. Yup. I've been at home IN BED for 2 days now. Yuck.

Was it worth it? I hope so. I think the cost of 2 days off work now, and feeling horrible, and not sleeping (oh, but wait, not sleeping is normal for us) is worth it if I don't get sick later in the year. Only time will tell if that's what will happen though.