H1N1 and The Booga

Booga and I went to the school for the H1N1 vaccinations. There was a sign outside the cafeteria as you walked in that read, “We are only vaccinating children from 0-18 years and pregnant women.”

Well that was weird because the sheet that came with the vaccination authorization sheet said, “Everyone 24 years and younger and pregnant women”, and I already gave consent and sent it back into the high school.

That had to be a mistake.

Then I thought, “Maybe it’s not, maybe it’s changed because they don’t have enough?

Then I thought, “Maybe they won’t ask.”

He doesn’t look nineteen years old.

But he has to have a vaccination, I mean; he’s in high school right?

He had been silently observing the bizarre parade of children in varying states of mania and health, some climbing all over everything and everyone, some coughing like they already carried H1N1.

Yuck.

We stood in line for what seemed an eternity.

An old woman in front of us would grab her chair and move it every time the line moved. She would walk a bit and then sit down when the line stopped all movement. It was a sort of one person musical chairs that no one ever won.

I found that funny.

I wondered if she was someone’s grandma, and if she wasn’t, was she a caregiver and what parent would allow their child to be taken care of by a woman who clearly couldn’t stand on her feet for much longer than a tiny march of minutes?

Suddenly a mother of one of Booga's classmates, came up and grabbed his arm, “Oh good,” I thought, “Someone I don’t know that knows Booga.” I love that, because they act like they’ve known me forever-even though I can’t remember them from “Sic-um.”

She had a young girl with her that was probably someone Booga knew in middle school and he was so excited to see her he blurted out, “I’m nineteen now! I’m all grown up.”

Well, so much for ‘he doesn’t look nineteen,’ and ‘maybe they won’t ask’.

And I really couldn’t lie because well, it’s immoral and the guy behind me looked like a minister from the community church and his wife and kids, so, I couldn’t do that.

I was beginning to worry I had spent an hour in line for something they were just going to deny Booga.

Would I get up there and would they just turn me away?

We finally got up to the cafeteria and again, there was a sign that said, “We’re sorry, but only children from 0-18 years old, others must wait till December.” Or die off and leave a continent of parentless children similar to “Lord of the Flies”.

We got up to the Health Department workers dealing with the paperwork of plague.

They dug his form out of a box of forms they had probably received from parents all over the county. I filled out some minor things and went to the next station. Two women quickly went over the form and one check marked it and another stamped it.

Then he got up to the lady who assigned tables for vaccinations.

She looked at his sheet.

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“He’s nineteen,” I spoke over him, “But he’s still in high school.” I said with probable apparent terror in my eyes.

“He’s going to get vaccinated anyway, I ask all the kids that, I want to make sure they know how old they are.”

I thought, “Wow, she could’ve just said, ‘nope, he’s nineteen’ but she didn’t.”

“Do you want a shot or a mist?” She asked Booga.

“A shot.”

I said amazed, “Okay, but that is a shot. You don’t want the mist?”

“I want a shot.”

I looked at her stunned “Apparently he wants a shot.”

“Okay then.”

So we got in the line and up till the time they put the needle in his arm, I truly felt like he was not going to get this vaccine for some reason or another, because this just wasn’t my luck.

Honestly, I don’t care if I get sick because together God and I can overcome anything. However, Booga is difficult to gage when he is sick. I can’t tell how he is feeling even when he tells me how he is feeling.

As we walked down the hall to the parking lot, after we spent our fifteen minutes in the cafeteria waiting for something like Booga turning purple or passing out or something like that that never happened, I thought, “Wow, I wish I could control my other children and get them their vaccinations when they need them.” Of course they are adults with jobs now and one gets her vaccinations by default. The other one, I have smack across the back of the head and remind incessantly to get things like car license plates and vaccinations….And they both still don’t always do what I tell them.

I sometimes think because I tell them to do these things.

I don’t do it to control my children but to protect them. Like I did Booga.

I looked at Booga, next to me. His long dark eyelashes framing his large cobalt blue eyes, sometimes there was a slight smile come across his face.

“I love you Booga.”

By default, “I love you Mom.”

Yes, but do you know how much I love you?