Today I took the day off to line up to get the H1N1 flu shot for Rowan and myself. Lately the buzz has been the extremely long lineups at the clinics that offer the shot. For a city of 1 million people, there were only 4 clinics available. Other cities handled their crowds far better than Alberta did. Cities like Vancouver only gave the shot to the high risk groups, where as for now it seems like a free for all.

With the recent complaints, they have opened up another clinic designated for high risk groups at the University, so we decided to go there. The overall wait in line was a little over 3 hours! At least we were inside and not outside in the cold weather. The thing that bugged me is that this clinic, although the majority were of the high risk group, that is, children under 5 and elderly, there were teenagers, normal people and students in the mix too, none of which are being turned away. That was pretty irritating to see.

Overall Rowan handled the experience well, the only thing was his reaction to the shot. AS far as we knew Rowan was not allergic to eggs, he eats bread all the time and we cook with eggs a lot. However upon getting his shot, his body immediately flared up, starting with large hives on the injection site, then moving to his torso and up into his face. That was a very scary moment for me, and kudos tot he nurses that were there. As soon as there was an indication of a reaction, there were at least 6 nurses that rushed to us to help out! We were all relieved to see that his reaction, although severe, was not anaphylactic, and he was breathing fine. (We could tell by how bad and loud he was crying). He also was very scared of all the nurses who had to keep coming close to him to see his body react.

We were told to stay to watch his reaction, and we ended up staying an extra 2 hours so that we could be sure that Rowan was ok. It was a trying time for the little guy but we got through it. He got to watch skaters at the oval, he got cookies from the nurses and learned a few lines of the National Anthem with me as we looked at all the flags hung on the ceiling. It was kid of funny too, as the nurses needed to see his whole body during the course of our wait, little Roro was running around the Olympic Oval in nothing but his diaper and shoes.

By the end of it all, Rowan's hives went down and we were told that we could go home. And after another cookie, Rowan warmed up to the nurses and gave them each a hug and a high five. Needless to say were were both very tired by this time, and took a great long nap when we got home.

Now we have to wait at least till November 19th before we can get his second dose. We were told that we would be getting a call from Alberta Health regarding his reaction and that they would set up allergy testing from a specialist so judge if he can go for his second shot or not.

Even though the experience was very tiring and trying, I'm glad that we went, and it's better to be safer than sorry. Rowan is a strong little guy! Now we wait.