Today a friend came over and wanted to know where I went to get my H1N1 vaccination because she has been trying to get one since she heard that I was able to get one. It got me to thinking, I wonder if everyone in my family has gotten theirs. This vaccination became very important to me because of a family history of death due to influenza. I had a great-grandmother that I became very interested in; there was just something about her that ate at me that I just had to know. Here was a woman that I had never met, my grandfather, who I also never got to meet lost his mother when he was a small boy and he still kept a picture of her. She still held a place in his heart. I have no idea if he remembered anything about her.
People question if the vaccination is safe or not. Was it rushed out too quickly, so many questions. There are myths about vaccination all over the internet, media, and television. Countless times I hear people saying that they got the flu vaccination and then got ill. I have gotten it for many years and never gotten ill from it. I have gotten the H1N1 vaccination and I am still here able to blog about it.
I want to tell a little about great-grandma May and why she has become even more important to me. I started doing genealogy when I was about 12. I would draw out family trees on brown grocery bags, trying to see how people were connected to me. I was trying to figure out who I was and where I came from. A few Christmas’ ago my mom dug out some photos and I copied them on to a disc and took them back home with me. One of them was a picture of May. It really stuck with me and my mom tried to explain how she died and left a house of four small children. A cousin called and told me her version of the story. I knew I needed May’s death certificate. I ordered several possible death certificates and none of them were a hit. I thought I had exhausted all attempts. My mom gave me a post card with May’s picture on it and it had more information, written on the old post card. It gave me a different area to look in. I sent again for several death certificates. I finally got Iola May Lee’s death certificate. She was called May because she was born the month of May. She was born on May 6, 1888, in Ohio. She didn’t die from complication of childbirth or not even shortly after childbirth. No, May died of Spanish Influenza, she died from the 1918 flu pandemic. May had no history of any other illness, she was most likely a healthy woman. She died on November 27th 1918. She first saw the doctor on November 23rd. In four short days she was gone and four small children had lost a mother. My great-grandmother only got to walk on this Earth for 30 years, 6 months, and 21 days, not long enough to raise her own children.
I wanted to know what her last days were like. I needed to know what she might have felt. I researched the 1918 influenza. I saw that it killed many young healthy people. We know that flu kills every year. It doesn’t usually take healthy lives and end them.
I want May’s death in my own family to show a valuable lesson. Today we have tools to help us, medical advancements and somewhat of a choice. Ask me again if the H1N1 vaccination is safe and I can tell you what the other option could be. I realize that right now you might have to call around and search for a place that has vaccinations. That you might have to take time out of your busy day and it might be a pain in the ass. I went 140 miles out of the county for mine. I sat in a clinic waiting room, I had to state my case why it was important for me to have this vaccination. Before I could finish giving all the reasons and take a breath I had been given the vaccination. Every year since I have known about May’s death I have taken one in the arm in her honor. This year, I took two, the regular flu shot and the H1N1. I don’t want my family to lose May’s story. History will repeat itself unless we make a conscious decision make a change within ourselves.
If I stayed silent and accepted all the ignorant excuses people give for not being vaccinated then I would not be honoring May. The facts are the vaccines are not live, that means they will not give you the flu. You will not get the flu shortly after getting the vaccine due to the vaccine. People, you are not wicked enough to raise the dead vaccine, you can’t wake it up and breathe life into it, no matter what anyone tells you. I am very sick of the ignorance that has been spread. If you could avoid any illness would you not? The H1N1 vaccination is free! Getting the vaccine is a responsible thing to do. Going without it is irresponsible.
