Bacon fever

Just over two weeks ago we managed to get jabs for the kids for the swine flu. There has been mild hysteria here as the number of confirmed cases has been rising in Autumn (when it's traditional for flu outbreaks and magsjuka (vomitting & diahorrea)).

This has been compounded by the risk groups getting the jabs first (quite rightly) and then it being opened up to children - but the demand vastly exceeded supply. So we'd been to the local clinic a couple of times in the previous week - too late as the stocks had run out.

Anyway the other Friday a local clinic had 8-10am and 1-3pm slots. Turning up a little after 9 was hopeless as stocks had already been allocated to those queing - I found out from a work colleague who'd turned up at 7:50 that the stocks had been allocated already then!

So we returned at 12:10 - and I was no 27 in the queue already! It was a cold afternoon and I wasn't properly dressed. The kids and mum turned up about 10 minutes later - then we were a group that were improperly dressed - with a miserable wait ahead of us!

Eventually the doors opened at 12:50 and we were allocated tickets to return at 1:30 - at least we'd got them - the queue behind us was already very long! We could go and get a coffee and hope that my feet de-frosted.

The jabs went well - although an unpleasant shock for Emily. About 2-3 hours later Alice was showing symptoms of effects - a fever over 39c and aches and pains everywhere. We gave her some painkillers around bedtime and that did the trick for a night's sleep - within about 20 hours she was back to herself again.

Emily's reaction to the shot was the opposite - it was as though she'd had an adrenalin shot and was rushing about at full speed!

We had a mild version compared to a work colleague. They had both their daughters vaccinated and one daughter had the symptoms for a week - high fever and vomitting. Talk about luck...