Gerber: Lines? What lines?

The last time I got up before dawn to wait in a long line, I was in high school in New Jersey.

I spent that dark morning with hundreds of other teenagers shivering in the snow as we waited for tickets to a U2 concert at Madison Square Garden to go on sale. That was in the late ’80s.

Fast forward 20 years. This time I was waiting in the dark for something far less exciting than concert tickets — the H1N1 vaccine. My 4-year-old daughter fell into the category of people who could receive the nasal vaccination today at several North Georgia health departments.

I don’t consider myself a panicky parent, but I have to admit recent news reports of a local child who died from the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, left me cold. The 7-year-old girl had no known underlying health problem, health officials said at the time of her death.

So when FluMist, the nasal vaccine, became available, I woke my daughter up earlier than usual and drove her to the Catoosa County Health Department to wait in line. At least, I expected to wait in line.

It was still dark when we arrived, and the lights at the health department were not yet on. I wondered if I had the wrong day. Where were the crowds? Isn’t this a pandemic? Where was the long line?

I has expected it to feel like the day after Thanksgiving at Target with moms and dads elbowing each other for a slot in line.

Things were far more calm. For a while, my daughter and I were the only people in line.

By the time the health department opened at 8 a.m., about 10 families were queueing up.

Fewer than 50 children had been vaccinated in Catoosa County by Thursday afternoon.

Because my daughter and I were first in line, it didn’t take long before it was her turn to get the nasal mist. It wasn’t nearly as traumatic as a regular shot can be for a tot.

“Feels tickly,” she said after the nurse squirted the vaccine into her nostrils.

That was it. No tears. No Band-Aids. No bribing with a lollipop to get her to stop crying.

We’ll be back in six weeks for a booster. But we won’t be getting up before the sun.

Alison Gerber is Metro editor at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. E-mail her at agerber@timesfreepress.com.