So
hands down the biggest monster under the bed for any parent (well minus the
very very few horrific people you read about on the news) is having a sick or
hurt child. Anything from a cough and
sniffles to something more massive that involves genetic testing can be found
by searching ‘hashtag BadDay’. Even from
the first time you peed on a stick and got the news that your life was going to
be completely different in the next nine months and counting (whether you
bought the urine vessel out of anxiety or anticipation) eventually you find
yourself repeating the word ‘healthy, healthy, healthy’ over and over as a
mantra on a daily basis. While it’s been
awhile since my teenage terror was a baby bundle of joy but I still remember
thinking, “Man I hope I’m having a girl, and I hope she’s healthy.” Now clearly nature didn’t receive my sex
preference in time to make that baby with an innie instead of an outie, but I
must say that nature really got it right here.
My son, well he’s kind of incredible.
I held
him the first time and immediately was greeted with an array of creative ways
that I would find to accidentally break him.
After all from my favorite coffee mug, to my best jeans, to countless
phones (you’re welcome Verizon) I eternally find a way to destroy my finest
things. I’d like to put everyone’s
thoughts to rest right now; he’s still in one delightfully willful, sometimes
smelly, homework phobic, mostly funny piece.
After I jumped the first ‘don’t break him dummy’ hurdle I moved on to
the information hurdle forest. You could
find an article, doctor, nurse, (no phone app or blog, too early for that), or
book with just about every side of every argument for or against even the
simplest things. Back to sleep, no on
his side, breast feed, don’t breast feed, wash every day, no every other day,
rock him to sleep, no let him cry, put him on a routine, no babies tell you
when they’re hungry……. This list goes on and on and on. And really, how does one chose all the right
choices? Impossible. Find me someone that looks back at their life
and says, ‘Yup, I did everything right.’ I’ll drive to that person’s house and
punch them right in their lying face (I’m super nonconfrontational so that’s
kind of a big deal for me). I think the
toughest struggle for me were the choices that had a lasting effect on my
son. I circumcised him. If I could do it all over again I’d call that
an unnecessary surgery. I wish I’d spent
more time playing with him and less time cleaning the house. I wish I’d have written more stuff down. I wish I’d taken more time off work after he
was born. I wish I’d done a lot of
things, but what I don’t regret is vaccination.
Taking
my little innocent in to get inoculated that first time was really
difficult. When the needle went into his
chubby little leg (this is truth by the way, my skeleton impersonating son was
once the mayor of Chub City, that’s in the USA) I cringed and probably cried as
much as he did. To knowingly inflict
pain upon your child is worse than having a cupboard full of whiskey bottles
that are all empty. I did my research
and asked the doctor to obtain the shots without thimerosal (which is in almost
none now). The nurses and the doctor
went over all the side effects including major and minor (including statistics
which were decidedly in my favor. I mean
all medical procedures have a
possible negative outcome. So does using
a coffee maker.) before the big moment.
They gave me a nice brightly colored sheet with all the information on
it and what to look for if something has gone awry and sent me on my way. Other than a low fever for a day, general
agitation and some swelling my little bundle of poop, spit-up and late night
parties was no worse for wear. It was
not until after my son was safely past the toddler years that autism really
took off in the news. Not like a fad of
acid wash jeans or anything equally as terrible, but the real stuff of
nightmares. It’s one thing to know your
child has a slight hiccup in their development right out of the gate and have
time to prepare yourself, it’s another to have it sprung on you when you feel
like you’ve already run the race.
Hashtag WorstDay. I can’t even
imagine what those parents go through. As
with all ridiculously unfair seeming happenings we all look for the elusive
‘Why?’, ‘How?’, ‘What can we do to prevent this for others?’ I’m not a doctor, or a scientist, or a
researcher or anything else of that ilk.
I am a mother. I vaccinated my
son and he doesn’t have autism. I don’t
know what causes autism; in fact I’m of the belief that many of the kids I went
to school with probably would test positive for it, but at the time they had a
different name tag of ‘Hello my name is: slow or problem child’. Saying this and given the resurgence of
multiple terrible diseases like measles here in Ohio I am so very very very
happy that I chose vaccination for my child (not that he can’t get measles, I know he can, I read the pamphlet).
Now
when it came to any of the vaccinations that were considered ‘optional’ at the
time I always opted out until more information was available. He wasn’t vaccinated for chicken pox until
fourth grade and he’s only had a flu shot once and it was a dead virus shot,
not a live virus inhale. He has a
history of asthma so shouldn’t get the inhaled version. Again, I read the pamphlet. In fact while I’m on the subject of the
chicken pox vaccine that particular doctor’s visit for the express reason of
needling my son was a pivotal point in his and my life. The doctor was sitting on a stool going over
the pros and cons of what was about to be injected into my son’s arm when he
looked at Alex’s ‘flat as we thought the earth was’ feet, then his backwards
arms, and after a few measurements he left the room and came back with a second
man in a white coat. Post deliberation
they agreed that Alex had enough signs of Marfan Syndrome (if you don’t want to
click the link it’s a genetic disorder that causes a breakdown of connective
tissue. Does not sound too terrible at
first until you think about the tissue that holds your lens to your eyeball or
your tissue that connects your aorta to your heart. That’s when it starts to become more that
just fun bendable arms that creates a Circus Plan B if college doesn’t pan
out.) We took our first of now annual
trips to the cardiologist and found that while there’s something there, it’s
manageable at this stage with prevention and vigilance. We also visited a very eccentric geneticist
that informed us that while the signs are there the gene is not, so we can call
it whatever we want but we’ll treat it as if it is. So in a way the chicken pox vaccine was
responsible for prevention of something that could be very severe. Thank you science. I heart you.
Like all
professions I’m certain that not all doctors are good. Some are probably terrible human beings
worried more about their pocket than their patients. I’m sure there are some police officers that
are very much of the same thought wave.
Or a cunty receptionist at a university office refusing to print out one
little page. Or a teacher that makes you
pull ten hairs out for each and every passive aggressive email she sends or the
four that she never responds to. Or
everyone at the BMV. What I’m saying is
let’s not let the few bad reflect poorly on the majority of amazing. Really, anymore vaccinating is everyone’s
personal choice. Apparently public
schools let unvaccinated kids in now (which is something I’m completely
against. I thought that was one of the
few requirements of sending your kids
to public school). No matter, this is
simply my story that inoculation may have saved my son from something more. The best I’ve found to accomplish in parenting
is I take the pros and cons, I weigh them and choose. Following that I hold on with both hands, tie
on my problem solving apron and get dirty.
I will not tell others how to parent, only how I do and also that when
asked if I’d like to side with science I will inevitably answer ‘Fuck
Yeah!’. Also mom, thank you for
vaccinating me, polio looks like an awful way to spend a few weeks experiencing
in nonfiction. I can’t protect my son
from everything, but if I have the opportunity to at least prevent a few, in
the words of Tone Loc, let’s do it.
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