I decided to start a new thread to show evidence or stories of just how serious these illnesses can be
And to anyone who disputes the severity of just how serious these well documented illnesses and complications of them are, I would seriously suggest reviewing some of your science courses
From another board I was reading.....
Obviously you are not of the generation of those of us who suffered through these illnesses. We ALL had measles, mumps, chicken pox. Oh, and let's not forget polio. Even an ear infection could result in complications. With the mumps you think you are choking to death. Oh yeah, testicular mumps can cause sterilization. The chicken pox left scars. But with the measles the scariest part was the high fever. I remember that illness in a dreamlike state. I remember the doctor making the house calls, my parents bathing me in alcohol to try and get the fever down. My mom told me I was delirious. Now picture that times the eight kids that were in our family.
Of course, the problem with the high fever is that it can lead to convulsions and other serious complications. I had an older cousin who got the measles at age 16. Her complications led to such severe brain damage that she was left with the mind of a two year old. She spent the rest of her life in an institution.
Because I was curious, I pulled out my Kindergarten and first grade report cards. I was absent 22 days in Kindergarten and 30 days in first grade. I remember as these illnesses would go like wildfire through the classrooms there would be 8 - 10 kids gone at a time. Pretty hard for a teacher to teach when kids are out for long periods at a time.
You can bet that when these vaccines became available our parents got us vaccinated. The Polio vaccine didn't become available until 1963. They did mass community vaccines for that. I remember going to **** School in ***** and standing in long, long lines of people waiting to get it. It was an oral vaccine and I remember they put it in sugar cubes.
My mother was exposed to rubella when pregnant after giving a ride home to a coworker who contacted her the next day to inform about her illness. Mother never relaxed that entire pregnancy until I was safely born and fine.
One day mom and I tried to figure out how many sick days a mother of an earlier generation would need to take time off from a job if she had a large family and no vaccines. Not all the kids would be sick at exactly the same time. We calculated at least 3 weeks for the measles, plus maybe a week more for slow convalescence. Add in the mumps, whooping cough plus 5 kids, and that is a lot of time taking care of sick kids.
I'm so glad you were fine! I can relate to your mother, as I was also not immune to rubella during my first pregnancy. Luckily this was in the late 1990s and we had a high rate of community vaccination.
That's a great point about the time off required to care for all the sick kids.
Incidentally, I dedicated two of my books to Olivia, the first was 'James and the Giant Peach'. That was when she was still alive. The second was 'The BFG', dedicated to her memory after she had died from measles. You will see her name at the beginning of each of these books. And I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children.
My maternal grandfather had polio as a child. He walked with a limp, then a cane, then crutches as he aged. I am a child of the late 60s. I remember friends getting diseases and them not ever being in school again, but their siblings were (I assume they either died or were permanently disabled). We all got chicken pox and it was awful. Anti-vaccers aren't making decisions based on sound parenting or sound scientific data, they are being reactionary and believing media hype.
My uncle had Polio. He was paralyzed in his left arm, and had an unsteady gait, it did not stop him from hauling hay or working on the farm. He died in his 50's at Christmas time in 1994. He was a great man.
With this in mind, I wouldn't blame a doctor a bit if he refused to take on children of anti-vaxxers. His waiting room becomes a source of liability if he knowingly allows unvaccinated children free run of his office.
My kids pediatric group has signs everywhere, no vaccines...they will not keep you as a patient. I inquired about those kids who cannot get the vaccines due to documented health reasons..those patients are the exception to their no vaccine--no patient of ours policy.
I'm so glad this thread was started. I've been knee-deep in education about vaccines for almost 5 years now as the school district nurse and people are so frustrating when they simply won't believe in the evidence. These stories about before vaccines are timely and helpful.
The other problem I have is family members or friends who are anti-vaccine.
I was born in 1957 and don't really remember the "shotgun" immunizations but have the scar on my thigh.
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
I had a patient YEARS ago that was admitted to the ICU. We had NO clue what was wrong with him. Any movement, any touch sent his body into the most God awful spasms. He would choke, arch his back, turn blue, brady down.....we had no clue what was wrong. Trying to do any work up was impossible....we couldn't do a CT he couldn't stay still, spinal was out of the question. We were waiting for the neuro when a MD from India came into the unit for another patient. We were in the room with this 18 y/o patient because it looked like he was going to code and the MD said....that kid has opisthotonos. I said..."What did you say?" He said "he has opisthotonos...you know tetnas"
I was like OMG! I called the attending and he rushed in. This kid was a construction worker and had stepped on a nail. He did get a tetnas booster at the hospital recently. It turned out that the batch of serum was bad and not effective there were several cases in the area at that time. They couldn't trace who got the bad batch and so there was a hige re-vaccination that had to occur which is why you now must record the lot numbers of vaccines.
I'm so glad you were fine! I can relate to your mother, as I was also not immune to rubella during my first pregnancy. Luckily this was in the late 1990s and we had a high rate of community vaccination.
It wasn't until preparing for nursing school that I found out I had only had one MMR in childhood (don't know how that got missed going thru public school) & I wasn't immune to rubella. Didn't know at the time how lucky I was that my first two kids were safely born.
anon456, BSN, RN
3 Articles; 1,144 Posts
I'm so glad you were fine! I can relate to your mother, as I was also not immune to rubella during my first pregnancy. Luckily this was in the late 1990s and we had a high rate of community vaccination.
That's a great point about the time off required to care for all the sick kids.