Who's to blame?

Up until this week, I had been getting more and more concerned about the H1N1 vaccine, and my inability to get any. All I hear on everybody's list of at-risk groups is pregnant women, pregnant women and more pregnant women. But I just have kept chugging along, thinking that if we've made it this far, maybe we can make it until the baby comes without incident.

But then Gabriel got sick Wednesday night. To be more specific, he started projectile vomiting in the bathtub. He had been absolutely fine up until that moment. And since he's only vomited once before in his short life, it totally freaked him out. Jav got him cleaned up and calmed down about the time he started again. And on top of my fear for him and wanting to comfort him and make him feel better, I started to feel another emotion that I couldn't quite pinpoint until later when everything had quieted down. It was anger.

What is up with the way the State of Texas is handling this crisis? Or is it their fault at all? We were last on the list of states on the ratio of population to vaccines made available, but now have moved up the list 4 or 5 states. Big woo hoo. Tarrant County has had one clinic, last Friday, for pregnant women and at-risk children where they had 3000 vaccines available. That is laughable and I refused to fight the crazies and stand in line for one (my OB/GYN totally agreed with my reasoning). Although I did hear that they actually had some left after turning people away all day long. I just don't have the energy to stand in line who knows how long with a bunch of people who might be sick already. What is causing all these delays?

Gabriel, it turns out, has a stomach virus. A doozy of one that's making the rounds, according to our pediatrician. He stopped throwing up that first night around midnight, but we were worried about dehydration and woke him up every couple of hours to take his temperature and make him drink gatorade. His fever has never gone over 102 and was down to 99.1 this morning. The nurse had said to keep an eye on him for signs of congestion or coughing, because that would probably mean he has the flu. He didn't ever show either of those, but kept sneezing and sounded stopped up all day. But then last night he seemed back to almost his normal self, and we stopped worrying so much. He slept through the night like a rock. Our fear returned this morning due to his listlessness and the fact that he kept wanting me to hold him. At one point I walked into the living room and he was laying on the floor facing AWAY from the TV just staring into space with his little hollowed out eyes. I immediately called and said we wanted to come in today, and Jav's boss let him come home to take him so I wouldn't have to risk the waiting room full of sick kids.

Having to decide about whether or not to take Gabriel to the doctor was a no-brainer. Having to make the call between what could be worse - Jav losing good favor with his new boss, or me risk getting the flu was a horrible decision to have to make, and one we shouldn't have to be making at this stage. Gabriel, who is slowly making his way down the road to recovery, (it's supposed to take 3 or 4 days to move through your system before it goes away), got a nasal dose of the H1N1 vaccine today But he has to go back in a month to have another one. I'm very glad he's started the process, at least, but I'm still afraid for both of us. I feel like our well being is relying on a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in a government office somewhere, and that's a very frustrating feeling.