Vaccines

I'm a strong believer in vaccination and I think part of that is due to Mr M.

Mr M was a family friend growing up who had contracted childhood polio and so was rather scary as a young kid as he walked with a cane and leg braces and spoke "kind of funny."

My Mom (a nurse) explained that polio was now rare due to vaccines and maybe having that visual reminder of illnesses the world has worked to eradicate or reduce gave me a healthy respect for vaccines and vaccinations.

I bring this up now as parts of the country right frigging next to mine just had an unvaccinated child die of the measles.  This worried me as folks travel and immunity fades.

I'm super happy to have found out (by looking at my vaccine records... find-able online in my province) that I actually got an MMR booster back in 2019.  I'm so proud of past me for doing this, as I would have had to do it on purpose and it means I don't have to look into potentially doing it again now as these measles outbreaks maybe pop up in more places.

I also re-did my tetanus last year along with diphtheria and I paid for my pertussis out of pocket as having whooping cough as an adult SUCKED and I do not want to do that again.  And for whatever it's worth when I was talking to a nurse on 811 at the worst of my illness he was concerned it was whooping cough as it's having a surge this year, so I'm glad I did that.

Next up is my shingles shot.  I had chicken pox I'm pretty sure more than once as a kid and I've heard the horror stories about shingles and would very much like to not contract it or have a lessened illness if I do contract it.  But I've also heard the shot isn't always delightful for folks so I'm in a battle of wanting to get it done but also slightly wanting to avoid and double also waiting to make sure I'm not lingering around in the illness category, you know?

After that, now that I've hit 50, I'll probably do a pneumonia vaccine, seeing as this last illness hit my lungs/bronchi and that used to be a bit of a weak spot for me so I'd like to have some added protection against that.

I'm not trying to preach here or convince anyone just saying that keeping on top of and up to date with vaccinations works for me and reduces some of my medical anxiety and stress.

For the record, I don't LOVE the experience of getting vaccinations but, I do them anyway, kind of like buying insurance I guess.

And for whatever it's worth, both of my brothers have the scar from the small pox vaccine but I was too young to get it as they stopped giving it... feeling they had eradicated it.   

So yeah, grateful for the scientists who do the work to try to help the whole of us, and grateful to those who are able to and choose to vaccinate to help themselves and the rest of us at the same time.