Question about flu shot

[West]

Hi, possible pre-nurse student and just a quick thought popped into my head. I have never had the flu shot, nor do I want one. I am assuming it is manditory once you become a nurse or do I have a choice wether to take one or not?

[Dixielee, BSN, RN]

Like you, I had the "real flu" once and it made a believer out of me. I was in my late 20's had 2 little kids, and got so sick I didn't care if I lived or died. My daughter was only 6 and called my parents because she thought I was dead on the couch. I have never been so sick before or since. No, it was not a few days of aches and irritability, I have had that before, but the "real flu" is something memorable. Remember there are thousands of people who die of the flu every year in the US and Canada, and that is in a non epidemic year. And we are in countries with good health care, nutrition, etc. If you want to see what the flu can really do, look up the 1918 flu epidemic. Here is a link and the opening paragraph. Yep, I will be first in line to get my flu shot, anywhere, anytime. The benefits outweigh the risks for this old girl.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/

The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as "Spanish Flu" or "La Grippe" the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster.

[lalaxton]

No one has yet mentioned one of the best reasons to get the flu shot is not only to protect yourself but protect your patients! You may survive the flu but many of your patients will be elderly/newborn/immunocompromised etc. They are the ones most at risk for severe consequences of the flu, and you could be the one to give it to them.