This was another week where I wanted to rip up the rails of a planned course and ride a different topic across the drought stricken plains into an ashen, hazy sunset. After all, those of us who may be vulnerable to more serious illness in this pandemic and aren’t in the incredibly privileged position of having access to dedicated, personalized medical care with treatments unavailable to most people on the planet may struggle to keep the changes and limitations that have been adopted by necessity from “dominating” our lives.
However, I feel like the demands of this time have wagged their fingers at me and told me to reign my saltier self in and follow the path of my planned topic. Many health experts have opined and cautioned that obtaining a flu vaccine this fall is very important, as a person can catch both the flu and COVID at the same time, which may lead to a higher likelihood of a poor outcome. And, high flu cases combined with high COVID cases would stretch our community’s health care resources far too thin.
I am not going to wade into the controversial waters of vaccination and those who believe it causes Autism. I leave others to make their own decisions about this, and I will make mine. This information is given here for those who may have a kiddo with similar needs or struggles and likewise are planning on obtaining a flu vaccine for their loved one.
Tony hasn’t been any place public (other than the sidewalks of our neighborhood) since the first diagnosed cases of COVID hit our community back in March. I knew that taking him in to his doctor’s office was going to be a rougher entry to resuming any sort of outings, and that having to use a vaccine requiring syringe administration would be the most likely to traumatize him and lead to higher resistance to going anywhere.
So, I called his Primary Care Physician’s office and asked if they would be offering the nasal flu vaccine this year. The receptionist wasn’t sure, so she left a message for the nurse. My first preference was definitely to take him to an office that he would recognize and be familiar with, so I started with them rather than a pharmacy. The nurse called me back and we talked about my concerns for Tony and why I would be seeking a nasal flu vaccine, and she said she would talk to the medical providers and call me back. I received a call back a short time later stating that the providers had decided to offer some nasal flu vaccines, so I scheduled an appointment for a few weeks after that to give time for preparing Tony.
The ideas I describe here are what I came up with to help prepare Tony for the smoothest vaccination experience possible, and I offer them for those who may need them. They may or may not help for your loved one, but they could be a good place to start.
As discussed in previous posts, we worked on mask tolerance, and this was important here to get him to a time frame sufficient to allow him to walk through the lobby and back to the exam room masked. In addition to that, I began talking to him about what would happen and showing him pictures found on google of other kiddos being administered a nasal flu vaccine. The one I used most frequently was off a male kiddo with a skin tone similar to our little man’s. I paired this with gently inserting a nasal spray in each nostril.
For the first week, I just inserted the spray in and pulled it out very quickly while talking about the vaccine and why we were getting it for him. After the first week, I began telling him that in a couple of days we would practice doing a spray in each nostril, similar to what would happen with the vaccination. I also asked Andy to buy a separate nasal spray for me to use so that I could show him what the spray would look like on me, and so that he could see it was something I was willing to do to myself and not just something unpleasant I was asking only him to tolerate. Two separate sprayers is important to avoid spreading germs unknowingly between the kiddo and whoever is doing the therapy work.
Tony really didn’t like the sensation of having anything sprayed in his nose, so I kept it to just one practice with an actual spritz in the nostrils every other day. Sometimes he would be scared I would spray without warning him, so to help him feel more comfortable in those moments I would hand him the nasal spray and let him insert in each side of his own nose, I would next let him take my nasal spray and insert it in each side of my nose, and then I would ask to be able to hold his nasal spray and insert the nozzle into his nostrils. We practiced this until he could tolerate having the nasal spray in each nostril for five seconds.
The day of the vaccination we called the receptionist when we arrived at their office. We let them know we would be waiting in the car until they were ready for us, and they told us to look for the medical assistant at the door. Once she came out, we walked Tony to the building with his tablet and put the mask on when we were about 20 feet from the front door. I put on Tony’s mask timer and we walked back to the exam room, where Tony took off his mask. We waited for the medical assistant to go get the nasal vaccine. Emily and I each gently held one of his hands while the MA administered it because he was still scared, and then we all clapped for him and I handed him some skittles (one of his favorite candies) the moment she was done.
The MA asked Tony if he would like to wipe his nose, and he gave me the stink eye as I handed him the tissue. He wiped, and threw away the tissue while the MA complimented me on my eye shadow (many thanks for that, it totally made my day BTW). We put the mask back on Tony, walked through the halls to the lobby and out to our car. I savored a brief feeling of elation flavored by knowing that the preparation contributed to a successful vaccination trip for our son.
The nasal flu vaccine does contain a live virus, and our little man did indeed develop a fever from it. However, this was a much milder episode for him than the flu was this past January, and I feel like it was the right choice to make for him and for our family.
And, because I can’t completely keep from wandering off course, I am going to leave you with some screenshots and a link below those to a recent editorial by the New England Journal of Medicine. I hope that each of us will do what we can on a personal level to limit the risk of spreading this virus to others. More than 210,000 Americans have already died, and I don’t need a panel of experts to tell me that each and every one of those lives was precious and irreplaceable to those who loved them.
“Dying in a Leadership Vacuum,” The New England Journal of Medicine.
