,
20 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
So. Because I haven't done this in a while, here's what happened to me when I got chicken pox: A story of why you should vaccinate your kids against it. And yourself if you haven't caught it already.
Chicken pox is a pretty common illness that is usually deeply unpleasant but not super dangerous. Well apparently my immune system didn't get the message. Little history about me: I was born 10 weeks preemie, and as a result I have had shitty lungs my whole life (aka, asthma).
So because of that, I am at high risk for any infectious illness. I get bronchitis with every cold, nearly die with every flu (get yer flu shot!), and just generally have a miserable time whenever I get sick. Kid!me was no exception.
Actually kid!me was worse cuz I also spiked a super high fever and had febrile seizures every time I got sick, too.
And that was with COLDS. Not more serious illness. So a kid at my day care (I was 3) brought it with them to daycare. And my younger sibling caught it first. My folks did their best to quarantine but YOU try to quarantine toddlers.
They did their best but the results were a foregone conclusion. Now, my sib had gotten off with a really mild case, so my folks hoped that maybe, just maybe, I might luck out here. Well. Variola zoster had other plans.
So I came down with it. My rash was literally everywhere. Eyes, nose, genitals, throat, digestive tract. You name it, I had sores on it. UNDER MY FINGERNAILS. My fingernails fell off because the rash was there too. My sores had sores. And in a few cases those sores also had sores
It was everywhere. And they say it itches? But it didn't itch. It BURNED. You know how painful and sensitive a blister is when it pops? Yeah. Imagine that. Everywhere. Literally. Everywhere. I couldn't eat, drink, piss, shit, walk, you name it, I hurt too much to do it.
And that was just the rash. My memory is hazy cuz I was 3 but my folks say I got all the common complications and a few of the uncommon.
When your GI tract is covered in that many sores, it gives you the runs and also epic nausea. And, remember, I didn't wanna drink cuz my mouth hurt. A lot. So I got dehydrated pretty quickly. As you do when your GI tract is ulcerated and you can't drink or keep fluids down.
I also got secondary infections. Skin, ear, throat, and lung. I ALSO had an asthma flare and febrile seizures. I was a seriously ill kid. I seriously almost died. From chicken pox.
I have some lifelong complications of it. My ears and Eustachian tubes were scarred and that led to a series of ear infections that eventually needed surgery. My tonsils and adenoids were also scarred pretty bad and left vulnerable to infection and they were removed as well.
I have scars, literally pockmarked on my torso and face. I had temporary hearing loss and a worsening of my asthma. And I was left with a deep aversion to green liquids (they wanted me to drink and they gave me a green lidocaine mouthwash that tasted horrible and stung)
All of that. And more that I don't have time to detail. From chicken pox. My case was bad enough that somewhere there is a medical journal article about it as a case study.
I later learned that the mortality rate of the kind of extremely severe case I had is north of 70%. I am lucky to have survived.
And now? Preventable. With a vaccine.
If your kid gets chicken pox they probably won't have a case as bad as mine. But they might. There is no way to know for sure. But you can prevent ANY chicken pox at all. With the vaccine.
I don't want any kid to live through what I lived through. The technology exists to prevent it. It is safe. It is effective. And it is cheap. There is no good reason not to vaccinate. My folks couldn't do anything to prevent my suffering, but you can prevent it for your kid.
Vaccinate.
