I was eight years when I came down with measles. My first symptoms appeared on a frigid day in February. My throat hurt and I felt warm and headachy. When a rash appeared on my chest my mother knew that I had somehow caught the measles, a highly infectious disease. Mama quickly isolated me from my brothers in a darkened room with the blinds closed tightly against the cold that had left a frost on the windows.
My symptoms intensified over the next days. My fever spiked and my cough became more painful and frequent. As I fell in and out of sleep I felt so weak that I wondered if I was going to die. My mother ministered to me with chicken soup and the kind of love that only a parent can give. I lost track of days and nights for what seemed like an eternity. I heard the sounds of life from my brothers while I wondered if I was slowly slipping away from the good health that I had always enjoyed. The days and my fever lingered for well over ten days as I lay weakly in my bed with a headache so intense that it was difficult to lift my head.
My mother told me not to turn on the lights in my room or look outside into the daylight. She worried that my eyes might be affected and that I would go blind just as a small number of people with measles sometimes do. Unlike the time when all of the neighbors came to catch my chicken pox I was all alone with the measles. Not even my brothers were allowed to be near me. I spent a very lonely ten days in bed listlessly fighting the virus naturally. It was an horrific experience that I would not want anyone to have to endure.
I survived the experience but when I returned to school I had missed so much that I felt overwhelmed. It took weeks for me to feel strong and normal again. I had missed playing in one of the few snowy days that ever occurred in Houston but given how horrible I had felt during my battle against measles I was simply glad to know that I would now be immune for the rest of my life. The thought of encountering that sickness again was terrifying but I learned that I would never have to face it again.
I remember being asked if I had ever had measles when I first visited a gynecologist. My doctor wanted to be certain that I would not contract the disease if I became pregnant. He was relieved to learn that I had successfully recovered from measles when I was a child as he outlined the dangers of having the virus while pregnant. He told me that if and when I had children of my own I would be able to protect them from the dreaded disease with a reliable vaccine.
From a personal point of view I was excited to realize that my babies would never know the pain of measles that I had endured. For that matter they would be protected from the mumps as well which I still recall whenever my throat becomes sore and I have trouble swallowing. My girls would not have to fear polio or have friends confined to braces or iron lungs like I had witnessed. They would not know what smallpox was like except from the stories that my grandfather told about that horrific disease. The miracle of vaccines would eventually render many of the illnesses that had once plagued the population moot.
Just as my doctor had predicted my children received vaccines and never became ill with many preventable diseases. In fact, so did most of the children across the globe to the extent that the World Heath Organization was one day able to declare that many of the diseases like smallpox and measles had been eradicated. Then a faulty study that was later decried by scientists suggested that vaccines were more dangerous to children than catching the actual illnesses that they had been created to prevent. Suddenly a backlash against any type of vaccine began to ripple through the world along with lurid stories about side effects that might occur. In spite of scientific proof that vaccines were not to blame for disorders like autism a new insistence on avoiding them gained steam.
Now we are once again facing outbreaks of measles across the world. it is a highly contagious disease that spreads quickly to anyone who is not immune either from enduring the illness or having the vaccine. This is a frightening situation because so many people have forgotten or never really knew how horrible and dangerous it is to actually be afflicted with measles. Indeed the impact of measles has been underestimated because it has been generally unknown since the nineteen sixties.
Nobody should think of measles as being a relatively harmless and natural illness. As someone who spent ten fevered days slipping in and out of wakefulness I can attest to the fact that it is not something that I would want anyone to endure. The same might be said for the many other diseases that have been all but wiped from the face of the earth by the many vaccines that we now administer to both children and adults. The miracle of science has eliminated the suffering and death caused by infectious diseases that once killed or disabled humans with regularity. The odds of dangerous side effects are far less than the odds of deadly symptoms from the diseases themselves. We should not want to risk returning to the times before vaccines.
I hope we can keep the herd immunity that vaccines have created as more and more parents insist on sending their children to school unprotected. As someone who has endured the illnesses and witnessed the heartache of those who did not do so well, I can’t imagine taking a pass on a tiny prick and injection of a life saving vaccine. I shudder at the thought of outbreaks that should be preventable. I hope that most of us are sensible enough to protect ourselves, our children and others.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 