You'd never know it, looking at him now — an endlessly energetic and curious kindergartner who has plans to become (in no particular order) an Egyptologist, an archeologist, a paleontologist and a racecar driver. And, in fact, I've done a pretty good job of spamming the painful memory. But six years ago, our first grandson, Lennox, was admitted to the same hospital he had been born in just three weeks earlier. Except, this time he wasn't in the happy wing, the one where tightly swaddled bundles of pink or blue joy are cuddled and admired by over-the-moon parents (and grandparents). This time, he was in the pediatric wing, where he battled a staph infection that had started innocently enough at the site of the umbilical cord he'd just finished shedding, and had spread rapidly to his blood.
Lennox spent eight long days and nights in the hospital, his tiny veins trying their best to hold up under the weight of the IV that was splinted onto his toothpick of an arm, aimed at pumping lifesaving antibiotics into his six-pound body, but continuously collapsing. Which meant endless jabs of needles searching (I've got to say it) in vain for a vein that could sustain the flow of fluids and medication.
Emma, a brand new mom running low even on fumes after spending 24/7 in the hospital room with Lennox, understandably couldn't watch or even stay within earshot during those jabbing sessions (they'd send nurse after nurse, phlebotomists, even call in the NICU staff), because it was just too horrible to see him writhe and scream as they poked, poked, poked. Erik and I took turns instead holding him down. At least he dodged the dreaded spinal tap, only barely.
Finally, the infection cleared. Lennox was a bit bruised, he'd lost some weight he couldn't really spare, but he was home.
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Until the phone call came from the hospital’s infectious disease department — the same department that had been treating Lennox for sepsis days earlier. Apparently, the doctors explained, while Lennox was being cured of one life-threatening infection, he had been exposed to another. An adult patient with a raging infection had been admitted just down the hall from Lennox, housed in the pediatric wing because there was no bed available anywhere else. By the time the diagnosis of measles had been made, the man had exposed Lennox, and every other tiny patient too young to have been protected by the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine, to a highly contagious disease that once routinely struck children, sometimes with devastating, and even fatal results. To prevent the infection from taking hold, Lennox would have to return to the hospital for another jab of another potentially life-saving needle...this one filled with immunoglobulin. He was less than a month old.
Measles (and mumps and other childhood diseases that once harmed and sometimes killed our little ones) was a world away, considered eliminated in our country with the advent of routine vaccines. That is, until it moved back, hopping flights and passing through customs with ease, arriving from countries where vaccines aren't routinely given or required or where rates of immunization have dropped, then spread to those too young (or immune-compromised) to be immunized, as well as those whose parents have made the choice not to immunize.
This is National Infant Immunization Week, an annual World Health Organization initiative that highlights the importance of childhood vaccines. Six years ago, I became even more acutely aware than ever of the importance of vaccines and the millions of little lives they have saved and can save by preventing childhood diseases parents were once helpless to protect their children from. Before measles vaccination became routine in 1963, there were three to four million cases of measles every year — with 48,000 resulting in hospitalization and 400 to 500 in death. Today, keeping our little ones protected is as easy as a shot of prevention — make that, the full set of shots recommended by the CDC, including two doses of the MMR.
Childhood immunization is the most successful public health intervention in history — but as we mark NIIW 2019, we’re seeing a troubling uptick in confirmed measles cases. In the first months of 2019, well over 600 cases of measles have been reported in 22 states around the U.S. That’s the second-greatest number of cases reported since measles was considered eliminated in 2000. The CDC predicts that these numbers will continue rising, with more and more of our most vulnerable little ones put at risk for this highly contagious and dangerous disease. Little ones like our newest grandson, Sebastien, who at 10 months is still too young to be given the MMR. Don’t worry, he’ll be first in line when he reaches his first birthday — but in the meantime he, like millions of his baby buddies, will have to rely on being “cocooned” in his home and his community for protection from measles.
For every child to be protected from vaccine-preventable diseases like measles, every child who can be immunized must be immunized. Which is why it’s up to all of us to spread awareness, not disease — to fight misinformation campaigns that have led parents to opt out of life-saving vaccinations out of unfounded fears about vaccine safety. The truth is (the real truth! The truth proven by scientific research, not social media!), vaccines are safe, but childhood diseases that they prevent, like measles, are not. Opting out of immunization can’t be considered an option — at least not one that the little ones we love can live with.
Lennox was lucky, and so were we. At his one-year appointment he received his first MMR shot. He cried for a moment, as babies do, and then he moved on, pointing at the tropical fish swimming happily in the waiting room aquarium, cuddled in Emma's arms, protected. Just last year, he proudly (and bravely) received his second dose of protection.
Here’s to giving every child the chance to be protected.
Hugs,
Heidi
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