Vaccinations

 

Do you remember getting vaccinated as a child?  What a blessing it has been to grow up in a world where vaccines were and are a common thing, and available to most everyone, at least in my part of the world.  When we were infants, my dear mother would take us to the monthly well baby clinics sponsored by our county health department where it was made sure that we were always up to date on our immunizations and that we were vaccinated against polio and measles and mumps, and typhoid and tetanus and diphtheria.  There was never a question about it.  Vaccinations were a blessing and we took advantage of those blessings.   Every year during elementary school, and even during high school, I believe, there were the yearly "shot days" at school, where if we brought in the signed parent permission form and the minimal fee payment, we were given our recommended booster shots.  

It wasn't until this past year that I realized there was a fairly major influenza pandemic in 1968 that resulted in roughly 100,000 deaths in the US and 1,000,000 deaths world wide.  I remember being ill fairly often during the winter months when I was growing up.  Was I sick with that original strain of the H3N3 influenza virus?  I'm not certain, but I do know that my mother took us into the doctor every year for our yearly flu shot.  As I grew older, and especially after my tonsils were removed during Christmas break when I was 11 years old, I stopped getting sick quite as often.  Was it built up immunity, the flu shots, or having my tonsils removed?  I'll never know for sure, but probably it was a combination of the three.  

When I moved out on my own as a young adult, I was rarely ill with much more than a cold, and never missed a day of class during college due to illness.  I also didn't bother with regular doctor's visits or flu shots either, until my pregnancies came along, but I did make sure that my own children kept up to date on their childhood vaccinations.  Now that my workplace has a medical clinic and offers the convenience of the yearly flu shot, have have been taking advantage of that preventive medicine once again.  I understand that there are times when certain people do have serious reactions to vaccinations, and I am extremely grateful that this has never been the case for those in my family.  I'm also very grateful to have received my second dose of the moderna vaccine for the prevention of the Covid-19., and hope that safe doeses of the vaccine will soon become available for the children of this world, including my dear grandchildren. If annual Covid-19 vaccines do become available, you can be sure that my DH and I, and hopefully all of our family will make these vaccines a part of our annual traditions.  

I hope you and all of your loved ones are well, able to stay safe, and are protected from serious illness through the miracle of vaccinations.