Back here already?

[beanside]

Or did I just not leave?

Ah, the fun of winter in a pediatrics office. One of the lovely wack jobs who doesn't believe in any vaccinations kindly exposed two of my patients to pertussis (whooping cough) last week. Now, they have colds and horrific coughs. Joy. Let me just say, the way to culture that sucks ass. You have to jam a q-tip up their nose and into their sinuses/back to the top of the soft pallet--twice.

These kids will be a year old next week. Imagine the fun.

So, I didn't get out of work until nearly seven forty-five last night. And poor Jess was stuck with me, since we drove together.

But hey, y'know, I'm sure that vaccine would have caused a whole day of fever. The month of pertussis the kid will have, with its potential seizures and coughing until the lungs bleed, fevers up to 106, etc., will be much better.

I hate people.

Comments

[justsonya.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad the kids have people like you to be there to do it. ::HUGS:: Like I said last night, that's a lot more important. :)

[beanside.livejournal.com]

*hug* Yeah, but I felt really bad for dumping literally forty five minutes before we were due.

So, what would you like for dinner on for Friday night?

I make a kick ass homemade mac and cheese with smoked sausage, or I could make bacon chili beef stew (which is really mild despite the name--you use chili sauce in it. Or, I could make mexican food with corn bread and chicken enchiladas. Or a mild curry chicken. Your choice.

[justsonya.livejournal.com]

They all sound good but the curry, I can't have that. Allergies. LOL. Any of the rest sound fabulous! I'm really looking forward to seeing you guys!

I've got Batman Begins and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the new one) that we can watch if we want.

[beanside.livejournal.com]

No curry, then. I wasn't sure whether it was the curry itself, or the spiciness.

Maybe mexican. I haven't made that in a while.

*nod*

As far as movies, either is good. We also have Resident Evil, National Treasure and the Bourne movies. Also Phantom of the Opera if you want some good cheese.

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

*drive-by not-my-journal smooches!*

[madandy.livejournal.com]

People suck. Hope the kids do well...

[katzb101.livejournal.com]

Oh for christs sake. *sends good thoughts for your patients* *punts the stupid prats*

[hederahelix.livejournal.com]

If I squint really, really hard, I can see why the crazy people don't vaccinate their kids. I mean, it turns out that there were vaccines that had mercury in them, and that led to badness. And I haver reservations about loading kids up with so many shots all at once. I wince for their poor little immune systems.

And I do think that the medical profession overall hasn't done as good a job communicating to people why vaccines are important. After all, this generation of hippie dippie, often well-heeled parents who get all worried about autism/vaccine links (which is not conclusive research)haven't experienced many of the diseases that we're supposed to be vaccinating against.

I still think they're loons, because the risks of the diseases, to say nothing of the epidemics that can come back if we lose the herd immunity that comes without universal vaccination, would suck a lot more.

I guess what I'm trying to say, and failing at because I haven't had breakfast, is that I imagine that it sucks mightily to see the downside of that after being unable to convince the crazy people of why their "concerns" are really looking at the problem the wrong way. Or worse, of having to sit in the office while the doc tries to explain it and the parents just don't get it. I can understand where their fears come from; what I can't understand is why they can't see that the alternative to the slight or perceived risk from vaccines isn't much smaller than the risk from not vaccinating at all.

When D and A's first kid hit vaccine age, she had concerns, but she wasn't not going to vaccinate. She just spread the vaccines out so that A wasn't getting so many all at once. In other words, she found a way to make the schedule palatable to her but that didn't put others at risk.

I mean, I wish someone would explain to me why we need a chicken pox vaccine. I have no arguments with the MMR or the DPT or polio(since my youngest aunt had polio as a kid. My mom remembers the horror of polio scares for kids in the 1940s and 1950s, so it's hard for me not to see the benefits of that one. and I'm of the age of kids who got the measles series between 12 and 18 months, so come college, there were measles outbreaks, so it didn't take in all of us, so we were supposed to get refresher shots. I don't like putting things in my body when I don't have to, so I insisted that they test my blood to see if I was immune, and I was, so I didn't need the shot, but I guess my point is some of us who are vaccine wary can still be that way without being total fruitcakes. Like I said, though. I wouldn't ever skip the important ones, you know? Frankly, these days, I'm sort of bummed I'm too young to have gotten the smallpox vaccine.)

Rambling now. Stopping. I seriously hope that today is better.

[beanside.livejournal.com]

The parents were doctors, so really, they should know better, but yeah. We've actually started doing no more than two vaccines at any given time, to reduce side effects.

As far as the chicken pox, the reason we started giving it was because they're seeing a trend, especially in the southwest, for children who scratch the blisters to get infected by the flesh eating strep, which though not fatal normally, leads to a lot of nasty scarring and pain.

[hederahelix.livejournal.com]

See, that's the part I don't get. When the health care system works its because parents and health care providers talk to each other. Everybody learns, everybody benefits.

And the parents are doctors? Yeesh. Guess that just proves what we already knew: just because someone went to medical school, that sure doesn't guarantee that said person is actually smart. ;-}

I had an abberant experience with chicken pox myself. My mother, in a story that proves that she didn't quite realize who she was dealing with, listened to the random mother of a friend who said, "Oh my God, she's going into first grade, and she hasn't had chicken pox! She'll get them for sure in first grade, and she'll miss so much school she'll get behind."

Uh huh. It's not like I was already reading before first grade. It's not like I wasn't already correcting my teachers by first grade. But getting the chicken pox and missing school for a couple of weeks in the first grade where my teacher seemed more concerned with making sure we knew how to line up--that would certainly assure my academic doom. Riiight.

Ah hem.

At any rate, my recollection of chicken pox involves my mom telling me that we were going to go visit this one family so I could play with the kids, and I distinctly remember saying "Hey, but wait, don't they have chicken pox?" And mom assuring me that they weren't contagious.

I got the case from hell. Okay, not really. They weren't inside my throat, for example, but they were just about everywhere else, including under my arms. Mine didn't itch, they hurt, so I spent days lying on the couch with blankets rolled up under my arms, so the ones on my arms didn't touch under my arms, etc. I clearly am still carrying around a little anger about my mother's choice to expose me to them.

I have, however, (since mine didn't itch), only one scar, which was acquired when I tried to stretch a surgical rubber glove over my head to create a rooster's comb thingy so that I could waddle around on the floor clucking once I started to feel better. My aunt was in a PA program at the time, and she'd swiped me a real stethoscope, a scrubs shirt, and surgical mask and gloves, which since I wanted to be a doctor was the best present ever.

The glove snapped off, taking one scab on the upper part of my forehead with it, and that's how I got my one and only scar.

I thought you'd like the mental images that story brings.

Flesh-eating strep=bad. And also, a good example of evidence that might convince someone who thinks, "hey, I had chicken pox, and it didn't hurt me" why the vaccine is important.

Seriously, enjoy picturing a not quite first grade me with a surgical rubber glove on my head, waddling and clucking, and here's hoping you don't have to do any more pertussis tests today.

[parchmentheart.livejournal.com]

Oh, so that was what was wrong with me when I was a kid. My kindergarten wouldn't let me start school until my mother got all my shots and a dentist check up.
She just sorta "forgot" to do those things until the school had to play hardball with her.
Parents like that piss me off so much, and not just from a rhetorical/ theoretical standpoint. I was one of those kids you just described.
Grrr..
Sorry you had to deal with that. I'm sure you are just as pissed too, from having to deal with it daily.

[caarirose.livejournal.com]

I never questioned the fact I had to get my kids immunised, not once, it was just something you did.

I've heard Grandma's stories about having whooping cough, lord love a duck, who would put their kid in the position to be that position?

*snuggles* Because I wanna