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. :)

[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.

[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