Decisions, decisions
Thursday January 29th 2015, 9:28 pm
Filed under: Family,Garden,Politics

Needed to buy some birdseed, and since it was right off the freeway stopped on my way home by Yamagami’s Nursery to check out the fruit trees.

And boy did they have nice fruit trees. If you wanted cherries or peaches this very year it looks like you could have exactly that.

No Lorings in stock, though; they would have to order and find out if one is available. I texted messages with Richard and came home, for now.

But when the sun was low I picked that spade back up and dug that planting hole a little deeper and now, at last, that spot feels ready for whatever will go in. It will not stay bare for long.

A side note: I know vaccination is a hot topic right now and that there are strong emotions on both sides. Hear me out, if you would. Measles is *the* single most contagious virus known, and if you simply walk through a room hours after an infected person did you can catch it. I have an immunosuppressed friend from my knitting group who got quarantined from work this week because a co-worker had been exposed to someone who’d been exposed to someone who’d been exposed to someone at Disneyland, the disease leapfrogging up the state. That’s an awful lot of quarantining and lost wages and lost time.

Our daughter the microbiology PhD was telling an anti-vaxxer the other day, Sure, if you get German measles you’ll be sick and you’ll probably recover and you probably won’t be one of the unlucky ones who goes deaf or gets pneumonia or meningitis and all that. You’ll probably be okay.

But you don’t do it for YOU. You do it for every pregnant woman. Because it is horrendously dangerous to a fetus in utero at any stage of pregnancy and extremely likely to kill or brain damage them for life. You do it for them. Because you’re a good person.


7 Comments so far
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As a science teacher, it is depressing that people don’t get the science. People didn’t work on a vaccine as a ‘it would be nice’ idea.
We all should want a healthy society and science and education are part of that.
Thank you for putting in your comments and love what your daughter said. Yes, it is not just a keep me or my kid healthy, it is keep us all healthy. Don’t be selfish!

Comment by Helen 01.30.15 @ 1:07 am

Note that my childhood friend Karen whom I designed the Water Turtles shawl for in my book had an older brother brain-damaged by their mother having contracted German measles while she was pregnant with him, before there was a vaccine for it. And I have a child who is both immunosuppressed and very allergic to the pertussis vaccine and cannot have that shot and is dependent on others doing right by society.

Comment by AlisonH 01.30.15 @ 10:56 am

I had measles as a child of about 5. What I remember is being very sick. I’m really very grateful that my daughter and grandchildren had the vaccine. They didn’t have to feel that sick. Also my daughter and I didn’t need to nurse kids through that.

I’m grateful for shingles vaccine, too. I don’t want to be that sick either.

Comment by RobinM 01.30.15 @ 11:55 am

I managed to catch measles, mumps, and rubella all right before the vaccines became available. I got rubella last, and it was a piece of cake compared to the others. I didn’t understand the problem until a few years later when I met a boy whose mother caught rubella while pregnant. Then I understood.

Comment by LauraN 01.30.15 @ 8:47 pm

this subject just sends me over the edge — I had all of those “childhood diseases” as a child because I’m old enough that there were no vaccines

I’m so glad that my daughter did not have to have any of them because she had the vaccine

and my daughter had chicken pox (twice!) because there was no vaccine then and we’re glad that we don’t worry about Mr Cute having that because there is a vaccine

it is so sad that so many people have bought into the LIES from that one fake study about vaccines and autism — it did such a huge disservice to both true searching for the causes of autism and to the community in terms of preventing disease

and don’t even get me started about the polio vaccine!

Comment by Bev Haring 01.31.15 @ 9:47 am

I am one of those rare people who had the vaccine and it did not stick. When I got pregnant with twins, they discovered I lacked immunity. Of course I got re-vaccinated after the twins were born…and they are being vaccinated for everything we have access to in the province health care system…but boy was I lucky not to encounter measles while I was pregnant….I think everyone should vaccinate when possible!

Comment by joanne 02.01.15 @ 6:11 pm

You also, at my age, get another tetanus shot that includes the diphtheria and whooping cough vaccines. Do it for the babies.

Comment by Sherry in Idaho 02.01.15 @ 8:33 pm



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