Playing Vaccine Catch-Up

Yesterday a rash (okay, okay, couldn't resist!) of articles came out about Measles coming back to my home state from Disneyland.

Now, let me start off by saying my 5yoS and 2yoD are basically not vaccinated at this point. I know. I know. It may not be very valid, but let me explain why....

1. I was not vaccinated until I was 8.

My birth parents were sort of hippies. When I came to my family, I didn't really get much education on the need for vaccines. We just were taken to get them, end of story. It was an aggressive catch-up schedule with 3 or 4 needle sticks per visit and was a bit traumatic for me. I believe some sit down time to explain things in depth would have been beneficial for me.

Also, in my mind the argument that "I turned out just fine," was pretty persuasive. 

2. My psychological temperament. 

* I tend to be very ambivalent about a lot of things, and simultaneously agree and disagree with the things I hear about, especially emotionally hot-topics...like vaccination. In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye's quote has always stuck with me because I find myself doing this All. The. Time.

Avram: (gestures at Perchik and Mordcha) "He's right, and he's right? They can't both be right."
Tevye:  "You know... you are also right."

When this happens, I tend to fence-sit, not taking much action either way, which in many cases does actually pick a side by default. In the vaccine situation, not taking action is actually taking the anti-vax side.

* I tend to be suspicious and distrustful of authority, including government and medical authority, as well as mainstream opinion. I have a strong need to do things differently than everyone else.

* One explanation I came across that really resonated for my personality (even though I simultaneously think it's bunk, and think it actually has some insight...see?...more ambivalence) is the Enneagram personality test. It labels me as a 4, which is titled "The Individualist," and says that my basic fear is that I have no identity or personal significance, and that my basic desire is to find myself and my significance, or in other words, to create an identity. This is huge for me. I often don't feel like I know who I am, and true to the description I have"tr[ied] several different identities on for size,"especially those that are unique or different. One of those identities I've played with is the natural/alternative/health-nut who, among other things, don't vax.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've never been out in people's faces picketing or yelling and screaming about Evil Pharma or anything like that. I've just had enough uneasiness about all the claims to wonder and to prevent action. My dedication to the truthfulness (or lack thereof) of the claims has vacillated wildly over the years.

Also, please note that it's taken me several years to realize these things about myself and my motivations. At the time I was making these decisions for the first time, I didn't realize why I felt the way I did at times. Hindsight is an interesting thing, and it's a good thing for me to understand why I feel some of these conflicts within me. 

3. We have not had a doctor for more than 8 years.

We have not had a doctor that we could just call or make an appointment with since we got married. Chalk this one up to being poor, newlywed students. We've never had a job with medical benefits, and we've never made enough money to afford our own insurance. We prefer not to rely on state aid, and so even though we applied to have our kids covered, we've only used it for the few times we've taken them to the emergency room.

As a side note, I did apply for medical benefits for myself when I was pregnant with our first baby. Ironically we made too much money to qualify, but not enough to buy our own insurance. It's a tough place to be. So I hired a midwife and did the thing at home. This also fit in nicely with my natural health persona that I was experimenting with.

The difference I believe this made is that even those times where I thought to myself Maybe I should go get the kids some shots... I had no one that I felt I could call or to ask questions to. This is especially anxiety-producing knowing that any random doctor I called I would have to explain that they weren't current and why. I didn't want to deal with whatever judgment came out of that and be pushed into doing too many vaccines too fast when I still wasn't sure how I felt about them.

Then I'd have to pay who knows how much for it, which I didn't want to bother with.

4. I saw no immediate need. 

 It's easy to dismiss the issue when there aren't any outbreaks in the news. Being a fence-sitter on the issue, I made a deal with myself. I decided that if an outbreak occurred locally, I would take action, whether it was quarantining my kids as long as the risk remained, or getting them vaccinated at the appropriate time. (Never mind that I didn't really think through the possibility that it might be too late by then and that the appropriate time would be BEFORE the outbreak. Yes, that was irresponsible.) I also made a deal with myself that I would at least get them vaccinated if they attended public schools, or at the very latest before puberty since some childhood illnesses worsen with age.

My 5yoS does have one dose of the MMR. We traveled to Montreal when he was 2, and we knew that it was a large, international melting-pot, and I believe there may have been some cases in New York at the time, which airport we expected to pass though. So we got him that shot a month before we left.

There were no problems with it, which I appreciated and which allayed my worry about the anti-vax claims to some degree. He does have a slight peanut sensitivity, which manifested before he got his MMR. I am somewhat glad that we knew it was there before we got any shots, otherwise I might have been extremely tempted to blame it on the shots, per the anti-vax literature, and possibly not come around to the idea of vaccinating more fully. In this way, I consider my vaccine hesitance a blessing. It allowed me to see the bias that might have been there in other circumstances.

Now What?

So here we are. My 5yoS has had one dose of the MMR and my 2yoD has not had anything yet. And there are a couple cases of Measles locally. 

Luckily, when I applied for aid for my current pregnancy, I was able to get it for myself and to upgrade the kids' coverage. I finally got my cards in the mail just yesterday, and have selected a Primary Care Provider and made an appointment for today. Both kiddos will be getting an MMR this afternoon.

I know that sounds reactionary. Maybe it is to some degree. It really is coincidence about the timing of the local cases though. I was planning on getting my 5yoS caught up just in case we send him to school next fall, and starting my 2yoD as well. I'd like to get it done now while we have coverage and a doctor. I only just got approved and in the system this month, so I haven't been able to do it any quicker. The news from yesterday has put a certain hustle into my step though!

And yes, I am having to resort to using state aid, which is not ideal, but probably better to just go ahead and do anyway. Maybe I'll have to re-evaluate my attitude toward accepting this type of help.

Since it takes about 2 weeks for the vaccine to take effect, we will probably be laying low for a bit before hitting the town. In the (hopefully rare) case that they have been exposed, we expect that we'll start seeing symptoms before then and can take care of it appropriately.

So here's the bottom line for me. Yes, I was swayed into inaction by the anti-vax movement. Yes, that was irresponsible. But I'm working to fix it.

If you know someone who doesn't vax, I can tell you it won't help to badger them. I'm glad that I've had a family who, even if they disagreed, didn't harass me over the decision (or lack thereof). If they had, I'm sure it would've pushed me further into the anti-vax literature and I would not have been interested in changing for having to admit my wrongness in the face of hostility.