Thread by @Cajsa

I discovered I have another Anti-Vax niece. She never posts about politics, doesn't forward any shit. She talks about her kids and her horses. She rescues horses. She is not anti-mask as her pics show her and her son in masks. But she just posted she's afraid they won't waive

the requirement so she may need to find another job. The thing is, she knows COVID is real. She's had it. But this is how this shit spread. Her son's wife has always been anti-vax. Both of her siblings have Down's Syndrome. She wants a reason for it

She wants to be sure she has neurotypical kids (and she does, my great-nephew and her have three kids) but she bet on avoiding vaccines to protect her kids from cognitive disabilities long before COVID.

COVID just added another element and enabled her to spread the anti-vax message to her mother-in-law (I now learn) and a couple of her aunts. Couple that with the absolute shit rural health care

and there's so much room for delusions to spread. By shit, I mean when I was struggling to breathe, the ER said I was hysterical and needed to stop panicking. My best friend's mom (sleepover) drove me 55 miles to a bigger town. I had mumps!

I understand why they don't trust doctors. When I moved to Oregon, the local doctors had all been practicing for a minimum of 45 years. My first physical as an adult woman did not include a pap smear but the question "How is everything down there?"

I belong to a support group on Facebook for a disease that affects my life so profoundly every day. Many of the people are in rural parts of the US where their doctors have never heard of it and how they go years before they are diagnosed. City docs are not much better but

at least in the city, there are some specialists. I was only diagnosed because my regular doc was out and a specialist took his patients for the week and asked me how long I had the disease. What disease? Jeez.

Of course, there are some good doctors in rural America, but how many? I don't know. I think the incompetence tolerated in rural areas adds to the disbelief in vaccines.

I will also add our local dentist did not believe in using novocaine or any other kind of pain mitigation.

But he was better than the dentist one town east of us who drilled a hole the size of a quarter through my sister's tongue, stuck a cotton ball in the hole, and sent her home. She nearly choked to death on the cotton ball.

The hole grew back.

And the one who takes the absolute cake is the doc who told my mom she had a tumor. I learned of this when a total stranger recognized me by my resemblance to my sister and then said, "You're the tumor!"

Because local doctors are so substandard, most people go to Fargo - in another state! when they are sick.

Oh, man, I just remembered I used to think I was literally "thin-skinned" because I got frequent nosebleeds and that was the local doctor's explanation. I mentioned that to my doc in college and he about busted a gut laughing