There are countless studies citing the importance of vaccination — and disproving anti-vaccine myths. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of children who are unvaccinated continues to rise. Now, one mother, Nicole Stellon O’Donnell, is urging many parents to reconsider their anti-vaccine stance after her immunocompromised child was exposed to measles.
According to a series of Twitter posts, O’Donnell’s 8-year-old daughter came into contact with the virus during a routine trip to the grocery store. Since her daughter is currently undergoing treatment for pediatric cancer, the exposure impacted her in numerous ways.
But that’s not all. O’ Donnell explains her daughter’s exposure affected all the young patients at her treatment facility.
“When we arrived at ped/onc they had to cancel appointments and shut down the infusion room while they sorted out the details of her exposure,” O’ Donnell wrote. “The treatment of all the other patients (children with cancer) that afternoon was disrupted.”
All patients then had to have their white blood cell count tested.
The good news is no one needed additional treatment — but O’Donnell’s daughter did have to wear a mask on their flight home.
Of course, O’Donnell admits this is a small price to pay and “may not seem like a big deal, but imagine being eight, bald, skeletal, without eyebrows and eyelashes *and* having to wear a face mask in public.”
Yeah. That’s a lot.
But O’Donnell didn’t get mad. Instead, she shared her story, along with a simple but important message: “Please vaccinate your kids. Please get your #flushot. It’s an act of compassion for the many children who need herd immunity because their immune systems are not working. #VaccinesWork.”
And she’s right. They do work — for those who are vaccinated as well as those who cannot be.
Source: Read Full Article