It's worth a shot: another blog post about vaccines

Vaccines are important.

I won't write the one billionth blog about how people should immunize their kids (they should). As a nurse I love immunizations. As a pediatric nurse for the last two years, I am incredibly fortunate to not have seen kids hospitalized for polio or measles or mumps or many, many other vaccine-preventable illnesses. 

As a nurse I have seen babies with whooping cough. I've been those babies' nurse who can't leave their bedside because I'm so worried they will cough, cough, cough until they occlude their tiny airways. I'm very happy that whooping cough is much less prevalent thanks to immunizations.

I've spent enough time on the hematology-oncology (cancer) floor at work to know that anything, ANYTHING we can do for those kids is something we should do. Getting your healthy kids immunized helps heard immunity and gives very immunologically fragile kids a chance to be kids. 

I hope you never have occasion to spend time with a medically complicated kid, but if you did you would wish you could do anything to help them. You would wish that you could give them stickers or toys or say something clever to make them forget all the pokes, procedures, hospitalization, tests. You would want to let their families sleep easier. You would want to help. And vaccines are what we do to help.

I don't really care if people dress crazy or eat weird food or say nutty things to me on the train. I'm cool with the fact that we are all different and weird in our own ways. But I believe we are all in this together.

After losing a pregnancy that we wanted very much, B and I are members of the "there but for grace of god go I" club. We count our lucky stars -- for our baby, for our health, for our jobs, for our very lucky stars. And anything we can do to help the people marching, walking, jogging, hobbling along with us, we will do.

Go vaccines! Go science! Be smart, but more than that -- be a friend.

Measles are scarier than sharks!