germ-x rant

have you seen the movie "as good as it gets"? you know one of the opening scenes where it shows jack nicholson washing his hands over and over and over again? he keeps getting new bars of soap, proving his true OCD-ness. (here's the clip on youtube) i'm afraid i'm slowly turning into this character! every time i leave a store or open a door at school or do anything really, i get out the hand sanitizer or [preferrably] go wash my hands and say "i've gotta get the swine flu off my hands!" i feel like it's EVERYWHERE! chris was sick a few months ago. he never went to the dr, but our family dr gave him tamiflu just in case - basically just because i'm pregnant. so we don't know for sure that he had it, but every single symptom of swine flu matched his symptoms. and i took care of him the whole time. also, i know i've been in kids' faces talking to them that have been diagnosed the next day with the swine. so i know i've been exposed to it, but i haven't had it, so does that mean i'm immune to it?

i got a flu shot once...in high school...and i proceded to get the flu. seriously? i figured if that was going to happen, why get the vaccine? people tell me it's because i had already been exposed to be before i got the shot, but i just don't know. i haven't gotten a flu shot since, and if i wasn't pregnant, i wouldn't even be worrying about it. but i'm worried. very worried. God tells us not to worry, but here i am. every day. wondering if this kid's gonna give me swine flu. i wonder if touching this door knob will give me swine flu. i reach to take a bite of my snack or lunch and freeze, thinking, have i washed my hands lately? do i need to tell you that my skin is cracked???

i know my reasons for not getting a vaccine don't really make sense...i mean, maybe they do. i don't know. you just hear so much about vaccines and immunizations being bad for kids. and it just seems like so many unnecessary chemicals to pump through a tiny little baby's body. and my reasoning for not getting it is that the swine flu vaccine is so brand new, and there have been several recalls, and they have no idea how it effects in-uetero children b/c no kids have grown up having had it! *sigh* paranoid, jack nicholson me.

i was praying about it on the way to school today, and i realized that i'm terrified - almost to the point of tears - of both options. i'm beginning to feel and understand the STRONG motherly instincts to do anything to protect this little one growing (and currently sqirming) inside me. i'm terrified of doing anything to hurt him. which means i'm terrified of not getting the shot and getting the swine flu - possibly giving myself horrible complications since pregnant women are at such high risk for "complications" from the swine flu, especially ones further along in pregnancy. but i'm also terrified to get the shot b/c i don't know what the chemicals might do to my little man.

do you watch "LOST"? did you see the scene where dogan wants jack to give sayid a pill? sayid says, "jack, if you want me to take that pill, i trust you." jack yells at dogan, "WHAT'S IN IT???" dogan tells him it's medicine to cure sayid's "infection". to test dogan's honesty, jack swallows the pill, at which point dogan freaks out and hymlics it out of him. "now will you tell me what's in it?!" asks jack. dogan says, "it's poison." i need a jack to find out for me.

so anyway, lately, i've been thinking i had ducked under the radar and was going to make it through this pregnancy without getting the flu AND without getting the shot. but it's making a serious comeback. i had heard that it was supposed to come back in a wave that was worse than before, but i had hoped it was a rumor. yesterday, i got a text from the kindergarten teacher who hadn't been feeling well that she did indeed have the swine and she wouldn't be back until monday. her husband also has it. two kindergarten kids went home with fevers today. i feel like it's all around me. i feel almost certain i'm going to get it. it makes me want to stay under the covers and not come out until little shepard is here. *whine*

should i just buck it up and get the vaccine? why can't God send planes to write messages in the sky?