All, just got the following from a colleague (identifying details changed):
My granddaughter Sarah has had 8 visits to the doctor's office in the past couple of weeks. She was first diagnosed with and treated for croup, then chronic asthma, and then bronchospasms due to allergies. Last week I took her to the Children's Theater and at intermission I had to call 911 because she couldn't catch her breath and she was getting cyanotic. After oxygen and an albuterol treatment she improved, but just to her baseline. Seen the following day and she was finally tested for whooping cough. The test just came back positive.
It is scary because she feels so ill but never complains and we see no improvement. Now her mother and brother have been diagnosed with whooping cough and the the rest of the family is being treated. I was told today that I should also be treated since she spend a a lot of time with me and am awaiting my physician's call back. In the meantime Sarah is no better and is also having bad headaches, stomach aches, sweats, and general malaise. And we are told it can last up to three months.
And this is why people should have their kids immunized. Physicians who haven't seen a lot of whooping cough since the immunizations became available don't recognize a variant case like this; this kid has been so sick and misdiagnosed for weeks; now her whole family is in treatment. What about other children at her school? What about the kid she got it from?
If you want to start the antivax rant, there are other threads for that, and please take the trouble to go there. Anyone who has similar stories to share, though, this is the place for you.
