Flu shots

I have a friend that made a facebook post about the flu vaccine, and I started replying but thought it got kinda long for a facebook reply, but plenty short for a quick blog post, so here goes. I'm sure that there are people out there who seriously benefit from the flu vaccines. They probably really save lives, but in my opinion that's more for the "young and elderly" and the "at risk for some other reason"people. I have never gotten the vaccine, nor have my kids, and we have never been seriously ill from the flu. OK, I admit that there are about two days out of the year where every person in this house is near deathly ill, (sometimes all at once for the win!) but people get sick sometimes even with a normal immune system and vaccinations. My theory is that there are many many strains of the flu and though you get vaccinated for the "most popular one that year", it does not mean that you won't get another milder strain or some mutant strain that results from the popular strain's determination to live and make people miserable. My dad got the flu shot one year many years ago and was the sickest with the flu he'd ever been, and he's one that never gets sick. My mom got the flu shot last year and she still had a touch of the flu. I'm not a medical technologist like my sister, (really, she's the head of the lab in my home town) so I don't know what makes a cold different from the flu, but in my lame attempts to figure it out I have concluded that both are just one of those things that we as humans must endure. Other animals can get the flu, I just wanna point that out. That's how we wound up with this big rabbit cage when I was a kid and.... just go with me here, it really happened. Anyway, every year our pediatrician asks if we want the vaccines and we always say no and he just says ok. I'm pretty sure he thought my explanation that first year was stupid so he just says ok so that he doesn't have to hear my ridiculous conspiracy theory on it, and that's basically what it is. I don't judge people who get the flu shot, that's their choice and it might be the best choice for them and I support that, I'm just saying that I don't get the flu shot because I have this ridiculous theory. ~Kellie~