The Face of Childhood Communicable Disease

In honor of the Measles Outbreak in California being over – this is one of my articles from last year. Interestingly, of the infected only 15% were hospitalized. There were no deaths and no brain injuries.  Oh… and close to 50% of those who got the measles, had been immunized. So there’s that.  HT Cheryl Atkinson Blog. 

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From time to time, I get sucked into the mommy wars about vaccines.  “Are you pro-vaccines? or anti-vaccines?”  and then, of course, there are all of the stereotypes that go with each label. This was a big week for that since the new MMRV vaccine in Canada has shown to increase the risk for tactile seizures in recipients. 

What tickles me to death though are the moms who eloquently write about how dire the childhood disease of measles, mumps, pertussis, and chickenpox were and how children were at death’s door or severely disfigured by these diseases.

So I pulled these photos out of my picture box.   This is a picture of me and my little sister from the early 1960s.  We both got measles, mumps, and chickenpox and I’m pretty sure I also had pertussis although my mom had a different name for it at the time. I remember that distinctive cough.

I remember us both being covered with rashes and spots, trying not to itch, and standing naked in front of my grandmother sitting on the couch as she tried to make sure she covered every inch of our afflicted bodies with lotion to ease our suffering.

I also remember getting to sleep in her bed while we recovered and getting to eat a lot of ice cream and watch a lot of t.v. as well as looking at the Childcraft books in my grandma’s room.

When I mention that I had all of those diseases to young moms at these web sites, they either don’t believe me or they tend to think I was one of the few survivors of the plague.  I assure them that not only did I survive these infections, but so did my sister, and so did every other kid we went to school with back then.  (I only know of one kid who ever went to the hospital for these types of diseases and that was due to a reaction to the smallpox vaccination that scarred us all for life.  As anyone my age to show you that scar; it was the branding of my generation. )

Getting these childhood diseases was a rite of passage, just part of growing up.  Interestingly, the very old and very Amish Pathway Readers book for second grade features a story about a little girl named Rachel who can’t go to the zoo because she comes down with the measles.  She stays at home until she gets better.  The wait is on for her siblings to get it too!

Just as Rachel and her family survived and thrived after the measles, sis and I did just fine as well.  We finished school and went on to have productive and relatively healthy lives. In fact, we may be better off for it.  I haven’t had a flu shot in over 20 years and other than a couple of colds, I’m pretty healthy.

For the record, I work with my pediatrician to selectively vaccinate and I appreciate his willingness to work with me on this.  But I really wish my kids had had a chance to get real life-long immunity from the actual short-lived childhood diseases.

This is not to say that there weren’t/aren’t some people who have had bad reactions to these diseases including hearing loss and miscarriage. There are also people who get bad reactions to vaccinations. Life is risky. That may make some readers feel “Stabby” but it’s the truth. But 50 years ago these diseases were an expected and normal part of childhood with low sequela.

Want to read a great post about the risks of the vaccine vs. the disease with lots of other informative links – the mom at LivingWhole.Org blog does a great job with that!