I am posting one of my older blogs today because Linda G Hill’s post The MMR Vaccination Debate – a Parental Perspective. really made me think and think hard . My two older children both in their forties did not have the MMR . I was advised against it because they both had chronic Asthma . They both had Measles , Mumps and Whooping Cough. I decided the third son would have all vacinations . Somehow he developed Whooping Cough before his second week of life. He is in his thirties now with a wife and baby.
Please have the vaccinations if they illnesses return they are killers! Here are links to imformation but do investigate for yourselves.
Whooping Cough MMR Vaccinations
Whooping Cough
He was always being sick, I was not imagining it nor was I imagining that noise he was making . It sounded like whooping cough, but he was only two weeks old?
I was at my whits end, he had started being sick before I had even left the hospital, yet no one would listen to me. I had had enough and so here I was in the Drs surgery siting in the hallway, because my beautiful baby was coughing so much he was being sick and I could not stand the reproving looks from the other waiting, patients.
I was sweating and stressed I knew this baby was ill, I had been through some very scary things with my other two boys . P spending the first fortnight of his life in an incubator because he had ‘post natal distress’ . Both boys had had collapsed lungs due to asthma, M had had his tonsils out then hemorrhaged when I got him home! he and P had both had Measles and Mumps and chickenpox to name a few , need I go on I did know a sick child when I saw one!
Finally the Dr called us in. I had known him now for the last nine years and he insisted we use first names which did make things feel easier. He was not happy with J, he was not sure if he had a blockage in his throat or stomach but also felt that as I knew my baby best, I could be right in my diagnosis ! I can tell you now I did not want to be right!
All the Dr could do was pat me on the shoulder and pack us off to the nearest hospital. He had rung ahead and alerted the pediatric ward of our plight. I do no remember how I got to the hospital , there were no mobile phones, I did not drive in those days and I doubt I took the bus. I should think I had either phoned my husband from the surgery,and as all of my friends who drove would also of had children and I could not in all conscience expose any of them to whatever it was that J had.
I remember being in the hospital though, I was with J in a single room. A glass wall separating us from the nursing station. I did not realize immediately that J was on the danger list and we were in a Barrier Nursing Ward. I was wearing a gown and watching my baby, my little boy sleeping fitfully and coughing , coughing, coughing!
I spent whole days there and often late into the evenings, my husband joining me as often as he could. My neighbour helped by picking the boys up from school and feeding them for me. I had often looked after her daughter, even taken her on holiday……. but I still felt bad. I would drop them off at school in the morning then go straight up to the hospital. I don’t remember how but I managed to shop and do the washing look after the boys and one weekend we even had visitors.
One weekend my husband brought P and M and the little girl next door to see J, they were not allowed on the ward so my husband walked them right round the building and they waved and made faces through the window….. good job we were on the ground floor. It hurt me to see them touching the glass, looking so sad, they really loved and missed J.
For some reason it took the medical staff nearly a fortnight to finally tell us for certain that J had Whooping Cough! How did he get that straight out of hospital, I just don’t know. He was so ill it was awful, I had to watch him suffering that awful cough. Every time he was sick I had to feed him a bottle of milk then he would sleep then the cough would start. Then one weekend I had gone home for a rest, ( we had visitors ). I had just had a bath and got ready to face the world when the hospital rang to say it was touch and go. They asked us not to come in as there was nothing we could do and we would only get upset.
Get up set ?……… I was upset. I stood in the hall looking at the phone, when our guests came out to ask when we were going out for our meal. ……. I don’t remember what or if I ate all I remember is worrying…………….
However he made it through the night, he took months to recover infact it was over a year before he really improved. I could not take him out until the summer, he was born in the January and was not able to be taken out until late May early June.
He is a grown man now with a baby of his own….
