Getting the H1N1 vaccine
Now Bill Maher can call me an idiot. Yes!
Anyhow…with an upcoming trip to Wyoming coming up (by which I mean: I’ll be away from home almost all of November), it seemed prudent to get vaccinated. Not that I particularly expect to contract the flu at any point during the trip, but even so: better to suffer through a waiting line than have to fork over non-existent dollars for medical treatment in the States.
Is that paranoid?
Anyhow, faced with the prospect of a 70 minute wait, I decided to do the only sensible thing one can do in such situations: blog.
Which reminds me: I need to get one of those “I’m blogging this” t-shirts from ThinkGeek.
6:47 PM: Arrived at the Rutherford Health Clinic. The clinic is above an RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) branch, and the line (crowd, really) of people inside the place, awaiting the vaccine, was visible from the parking lot. The line didn’t stretch out into the parking lot (mercifully), nor did it snake it’s way down the staircase leading up to the clinic.
This latter point was, I think, the result of the efforts of a security guard waiting at the base of the stairs; he was letting people up in small groups, as groups of people came down the stairs and left.
The sign on the door, as noted, promised a 70 minute wait. Given that the clinic supposedly closed at 8:00 PM, that seemed to also be an upper bound on the time it would even be possible to spend in the clinic.
6:52 PM: The security guard allowed a group of people (me included) to go upstairs. That was, admittedly, a shorter stay in the main floor lobby that I had been expecting.
6:56 PM: The lady in front of me evidently works at the RBC branch, and noted to her friend that this was the shortest she’d seen the line all week. Apparently, on previous days, it had tended to stretch out into and across the parking lot.
6:59 PM One of the elderly gentlemen in the line behind me quipped, concerning the twisting path the line of people followed: “Disneyland perfected this system a long time ago.”
7:05 PM: Got to the registration table and handed over my health care card. Lined up in the next line, which should be the line ending in a needle.
7:11 PM: The little boy next to me quipped that he was going to die in the heat. Admittedly, it’s pretty warm in the clinic; if there is A/C in the building, it isn’t turned on.
Also, the needle really isn’t popular with kids; I’ve already lost count of the number of children I’ve heard scream from across the room.
Also, I wish now that I’d brought my camera! This teeming mass of humanity is worth taking a few pictures of. But as it is, I didn’t even remember to bring my mobile phone…so pictures are a no-go.
7:20 PM: I’m about a third of the way through the line, which is…decent progress, I guess.
There don’t seem to be many — any, actually — more people in line for the registration table. I guess the downstairs door must’ve been locked at about 7:00 PM.
I wonder if anyone was turned away? If so, I wonder how many people were turned away?
7:24 PM: You know, I remember when this building didn’t exist? I remember when the lot it’s built on used to be a greenhouse.
The Ellerslie area of town has seen tremendous amounts of development in the last few years; I remember when the only thing out this way was the farm my friend (and best man) Colin lived on.
Also: since I’m tapping away on the iPod Touch anyhow, maybe I should fire up some music to pass the time.
7:30 PM: At a guess, I’m about halfway through the line. They’ve definitely stopped letting people in now…now, people are just lingering in the hallways.
There are a lot of kids here, especially young kids and toddlers. Granted, that’s nice to see in a sense (always nice to see a community with lots of kids in it), and granted they would probably do well to get immunized…but for a lot of them (especially the babies) it’s pretty late in the day. There’s a lot of grumpy, tired faces all around this place.
7:43 PM: Nearly at the front of the line. So far, that sign downstairs is holding up it’s end of the bargain.
7:45 PM: My turn. Take that, the sign: 58 minutes!
7:55 PM: Well, that was quick and nearly painless. Now to just sit around in the waiting room for a few minutes before running out for groceries. Not that I’ve ever reacted to a needle-administered shot before, but there’s little harm in observing convention.
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