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The Bully Strikes Again
Well, National Influenza Week is finally over! I’m having some serious post-holiday depression. You look forward to something for an entire year and then, whoosh, it’s over and done with in a flash. Wow, I can’t believe it’s already over. I hope all of you had a wonderful time. I certainly did. However, I was reminded this week that not everyone is excited about the flu vaccine as I am. See over here in the UK, we don’t have all the choices we do in America, like the Flumist nasal spray or the new intradermal (right into the skin!!) option. No, all we have is the plain old shot. Which I don’t think is that bad but I guess not everyone agrees.
“I don’t like shots,” said my babysitter. “And I never, I mean never, get sick.”
“Well, you’ve also never worked for a lady who brings home disgusting germs after getting snotted on all day. And Eva and Zoe, well, when are their noses not running?”
Do you get that I had to do some convincing? Unfortunately, the fact that I work in a hospital, surrounded by the sickest of the sick wasn’t quite enough for her. So I pulled out the big cards.
“And, by the way, I’ve gone public speaking about the flu shot. As in I’ve been invited to join conference calls with people like Dr. William Shaffner , chief of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University. And on that call was Jennifer Lastinger, a mother who’d lost her 3 ½ year old totally healthy child to influenza. This is not a cold. It’s serious stuff.
I could see her beginning to crack. And then I went for the kill.
“And, by the way, if it were to come out that my own babysitter dropped dead from the flu, after all my talk about making sure my children are well-protected, well that would destroy my reputation and derail my career. Which means I wouldn’t need you to babysit.”
And that did it. She’s now vaccinated. Sometimes you’ve just got to hit ‘em where it hurts.
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