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When I was recently at the vet’s office, I started eavesdropping a little on the conversation between two older women. When they started talking about the measles outbreak in Texas, I couldn’t help it. I joined in.
One of the women, who wore thick glasses, shared that she had lost much of her sight to a bout with measles as a child. She just couldn’t understand why so many parents today are reluctant to vaccinate. If they had experienced measles themselves or watched someone else go through it, she said, they would be looking forward to getting their children immunized instead of downplaying the disease.
It got me thinking. I put out a call on social media and in the First Opinion newsletter, asking readers to share their experiences with vaccine-preventable illnesses. I received dozens of emails in which people wrote vividly about the pain and discomfort of even “mild” cases of measles, mumps, and pertussis, despite the decades that have passed. In many cases, they also recall the non-physical aspects of their illnesses: the remedies their mothers tried, the experience of sitting in the dark, the fear, and even, in one case, a spiritual vision. There were some quite recent stories as well.
Below, you’ll find just some of those responses. In addition to sharing their own misery, many wrote about how difficult it was to watch a sibling be sick. Others talked about going to school with students suffering the long-term effects of polio and the pervasive fear of the devastating disease. The danger of a vaccine-preventable illness, these letters show, is not just to the individual but to the family and community around them.
A few physicians who treated vaccine-preventable illnesses wrote in, too, sharing deeply alarming stories of complications and death.
In some entries from patients, the details are a little fuzzy because many years have passed. Also, of course, medicine has changed in the past 60-plus years; for instance, many mention sitting in a dark room while having the measles, because it was believed to protect their vision from long-term damage. Measles can cause light sensitivity that makes it significantly more comfortable to sit in a dark room, but it’s no longer considered medically critical.
Other things in medicine have not changed. There are still no antivirals to treat measles.
As of Friday, 1,001 measles cases have been confirmed in 31 states, and more than 10,000 pertussis cases have been reported, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Submissions have been lightly edited for STAT style and clarity. Some submitters requested that STAT use only their first name or withhold their name.
‘All that hard-won immunity gone’
I’m 83 years old, had chickenpox as a 3-year-old, and still recall how ill I was, able to tolerate only sipping small amounts of water without vomiting and desperately thirsty at the same time.
My brother and I had mumps, which segued into meningitis when we were 11 or 12 years old. We were quite ill, unable to tolerate light, kept in a darkened room for weeks, and very, very debilitated when we finally recovered. I recall being barely able to walk down stairs, hanging onto the railing. We were lucky in that both parents, unusually for that time, were physicians and also my grandmother came to stay to help care for us. But for my parents’ knowledge I’m not sure we would have survived almost completely undamaged.
Because I developed lymphoma in my late 60s, I had a bone marrow transplant and lost all my childhood immunities, so then received all the usual childhood vaccines. All that hard-won immunity gone!
— Fran Martin
‘The worst childhood illness I had’
I had the measles as a child. I think I was about 8 years old, therefore circa 1960. To this day, if someone says “measles” something inside me cringes. I remember having a high fever. I still think it was the worst childhood illness I had. I also had mumps and rubella. At that time, everyone was getting measles. Measles was, to some extent, a rite of passage in elementary school. I am glad that when I had measles I was not aware how dangerous it could be. I think knowing would have made me more fearful and could have impacted my full recovery.
I also grew up at the end of the polio epidemic. I heard about people whose siblings had it and have known people who were impaired by polio — both in my personal life and later in my professional life as a physical therapist. Every year we had terrifying assemblies at school about polio, about children in iron lungs, and about people who never regained their ability to walk. I would go to bed and keep wiggling my toes in the hope that I would not get polio.
I was fortunate the Salk vaccine was available early in my childhood. We hated those shots, but after those assemblies there was no question about getting the vaccine. In fifth grade, the whole school got the Sabin vaccine. After that, the assemblies stopped and polio was no longer discussed as frequently.
Today’s population has little immediate experience with these and other diseases. They are fortunate. Perhaps they take it for granted that these diseases are rare. Some people do not recognize how serious these infections can be. It baffles me that people would not immunize their children against measles or polio. I hope it does not take more deaths for people to realize that “natural” remedies are highly unlikely to be effective and that even medical interventions are not as good as immunization.
— Aviva Gans Rosenberg
The long-term effects of congenital rubella syndrome
In early 1958, my mother was a New York City elementary school teacher and was exposed to a student with rubella. Rubella is almost always a very mild illness. Most don’t even know they have it. My mother had very mild symptoms.
But pregnant women exposed to rubella in their first trimester have a substantially increased likelihood of having a child with birth defects, congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), or fetal demise. My mother knew she was pregnant and had heightened concern that was proved justified well after the September birth of my sister. It would not be for some time that my parents knew that 1) my sister was profoundly deaf and 2) nothing worse had befallen her. My sister is now retired after a nearly 40-year career, having raised two beautiful daughters with her (also deaf) husband of more than 44 years. Now a grandmother of three as well. She is a fantastic lip-reader and benefits from technology and signing.
I think congenital rubella syndrome is underdiscussed. Because rubella (also once known as German measles) is even more invisible than measles, I am concerned that we could have small outbreaks of rubella happening right now and we would not know for years: only recognizing it, possibly, when seemingly random cases of stillbirth occur or deafness, developmental delay, cataracts, or heart disease present in early childhood.
— Howard P. Forman, M.D., partially adapted from Bluesky
Post-polio syndrome
One of my best friends died of post-polio syndrome approximately 12 years ago. She was a skilled pathologist. She had caught polio as a medical student in Capetown, South Africa, likely early in the ’60s. She spent a week or two in an iron lung and was paralyzed for a while. She missed one year of medical school while learning to walk again. But her legs and arms were always skinny and weak with muscle loss. She died of respiratory failure because her torso became too weak to breathe later in life. It was very hard to watch her waste away as the years went by, breathing less and less effectively.
Her father made her go to medical school after the family watched their 3-year-old die of diphtheria at home. My friend never forgot the horror of watching her younger sister die. That was in the 1940s. Such deadly infections were not rare then; most people knew families affected by contagious diseases. In my large Southern California high school there were too many kids who limped due to polio damage they sustained in the early ’50s.
Get those vaccines, I say. I once worked in a county vaccine clinic, and nearly every family who brought kids for “school shots” got all school-required vaccines plus the HPV series, if they were old enough. Our patients were mostly new immigrants and they often came from countries where they had seen far too many diseases.
— Roxanne B.
Having pertussis in the 21st century
It started out as a very slight sore throat, a minor cough, and a runny nose — something that I usually wouldn’t think twice about. However, my principal investigator (PI) had just had a baby (who I was around in an outdoor setting when he was a few weeks old) and I was planning cross-country travel for my cousin’s bat mitzvah. Out of an abundance of precaution, I went to the health center and they tested me for strep. The test came back negative, so I was cleared to travel. Over the course of that weekend, I developed a really aggressive cough. I woke up about every hour or so in the night and had to leave the room during services several times due to coughing fits. When I got back, I was told that the throat culture was positive for strep A, so they started me on an antibiotic.
Over the next few days, things just kept getting worse. I started coughing until I had to gasp for air. Finally, I went back to the health center and asked that they test me for pertussis. The nurse was actually pretty resistant because it seemed so unlikely (I was vaccinated and an adult), but it came back positive. I didn’t get much guidance on what to do next, so I took some measures that seemed somewhat extreme for the fall of 2019 — isolating at home while I finished the antibiotic course, wearing a surgical mask when my friends dropped off food at the door, and contacting everyone I’d been around to share my diagnosis and signs to look out for.
The scariest part of all of this is that I’d been around my PI’s newborn as well as young children in my family. They were contacted by contact tracers and, luckily, did not ultimately become infected. Based on symptoms that they ended up having, I believe that I infected two to three family members (including my grandfather), although their doctors never tested them. Since I hadn’t received my diagnosis and started an appropriate antibiotic until after I’d developed that nasty cough, I basically just had to wait things out until my body and lungs recovered.
I’d cough until I couldn’t breathe anymore or until I threw up (this happened a few times a day and I ended up losing a considerable amount of weight that I did not want to lose). The fits could come on randomly but there were certain triggers — laughing, walking, biking. They seemed to get worse at night too, and I’d lose a few hours of sleep each night due to these coughing fits. The fact that they were exacerbated by exercise was especially frustrating. I really enjoy exercising a few times a week and teach group fitness classes, but couldn’t do any of that for months. I coughed so hard that I pulled a muscle in my rib, which made it hard to get up and basically impossible to bike (my main mode of transit at the time). This also interfered with my social life and work very early on in graduate school as I dealt with substantial fatigue. This was, technically, a mild case.
It’s definitely called the 100-day cough for a reason. I was diagnosed in late September, and the cough didn’t really go away until February 2020. Healing was frustratingly nonlinear. There were a couple of times when I started to feel better and then caught what was probably a minor cold and then everything would get worse again. I had in my mind March 2020 as a target for when my life would get back to normal. In all the conversation about comorbidities and risk of severe Covid, there was never any clarity on what a recent pertussis infection would mean for me, so I was especially cautious. I still feel like my lungs never fully healed — I was more sensitive to wildfire smoke in the next few years living in California.
One final note: I had gotten my DTaP series as a kid and a Tdap booster when I turned 13. I went in for a 10-year booster when I turned 23, but only received the Td, which was the guideline at the time. The guidelines changed a couple of months after I got sick so that people can get the Td or the Tdap every 10 years. I’ve made it my personal mission to make sure people know what the difference is and stay up to date on their boosters!
— Mallory H.
The pediatric infectious disease physician turned vaccine researcher
Most young physicians today have fortunately never seen the vaccine-preventable diseases of the past. Prior to becoming a vaccine clinical researcher, I was a practicing pediatric infectious disease physician and cared for patients who suffered from diseases that can be prevented by vaccination.
I recall the case of a healthy, thriving school-aged child who developed unexplained tremors, muscle weakness, and seizures. She had a serious complication of measles, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a rare and often deadly form of brain inflammation. When she was an infant, she lived in a country where the measles vaccine was not routinely given and became infected. Her mother was doing everything she could to care for her. Like measles, there is no treatment for subacute sclerosing panencephalitis. Over several months, her condition deteriorated, which was heart-wrenching for our entire medical team, especially in the last few months before she died. She was unable to walk, eat on her own, speak, or do other things we take for granted when we are healthy.
Pertussis, or whooping cough, has also emerged in recent headlines. This infection can cause coughing fits so severe that the child cannot breathe between coughs. Newborn infants with pertussis might not have a severe cough but may stop breathing and need to be monitored with a machine to alert their caregivers to revive them. I have also taken care of adolescents who were not fully vaccinated as infants and developed cases of pertussis resulting in respiratory compromise requiring hospitalization with IV fluids and oxygen support. Many of those same patients were in the hospital for several days with trouble breathing and eating and had painful chest muscle aches from days of unrelenting coughs.
Vaccines are our best defense against these potentially serious infectious diseases. It is very sad to see them return to many communities in the U.S.
— Paula Annunziato, M.D., senior vice president for infectious disease and vaccine global clinical development at Merck. She served as an industry representative on the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee in 2023.
Measles as an adult
I got measles as an adult, just before the vaccine was approved. I was doing a children’s theater show in a very small theater. It was a thrust “stage.” We were surrounded by little kids. Three days later I had measles. I was in bed, in a darkened room for a week. I couldn’t use my eyes at all because, my doctor said, measles was much more dangerous for adults and I might lose my sight. It was not a fun experience. I also had chickenpox as a child and thus carry the virus as an older adult — just waiting to ambush me with shingles.
— Stephani
‘I signed 63 death certificates for measles in the children’s ward’
I had measles when I was a fourth-year medical student In Zimbabwe. I had asked the doctor who ran the Student Health Service for a vaccination, and he said he could not believe that I had not had measles as a child. So I got it in my 20s and dropped my weight from 215 pounds to 185 pounds in the two weeks. Initially, I was in a student residence, but when my fairly new girlfriend came to see me, she was so shocked she insisted I move into her family home. She and her mother nursed me through a severe case. Having gone through that experience with her, I decided she was a “keeper” and I married her. We celebrate our 50th anniversary this year.
Later, I worked at a rural hospital in Zimbabwe in the post-civil war period in the early 1980s. During the last years of the war, immunization services had broken down. I will never forget February 1981 when I signed 63 death certificates for measles in the 28-bed children’s ward. I became expert at doing tracheostomies in year-old infants. Not an easy procedure. But three years later measles was not in the top 20 causes of death. We used our hospital ambulance to go from village to village immunizing every child under 5 and raised the community measles immunization rate to 85%.
We also saw other immunization-preventable diseases including neonatal tetanus, whooping cough, and polio. By 1983, we stopped seeing these cases, though we continued to see cases of diarrhea, malnutrition, and pneumonia.
— Richard Laing
‘I remember how much it hurt’
I was spared smallpox and polio by vaccines, but I had measles before there was a vaccine. When we were in grade school, my sister got it first and recovered in reasonable time.
But I wasn’t so lucky. Just as the itching was fading and I was looking forward to going back to school, I started having headaches, and light made them worse. It became so painful to move my neck that I sat all day in a chair and slept sitting up.
I was living in Moab, Utah, in a place and time when doctors made house calls. My doctor visited me every day, and even though I was so sick, I could tell that he was worried about me. I had viral meningitis. I don’t remember much more, but I do remember that it took a long time to recover, and I missed a lot of school. And I remember how much it hurt.
Now I’m a scientist, and I’ve learned that measles has long-term effects on the immune system by destroying memory B cells, weakening immunity to the viruses and bacteria that had already infected us. This is a great reason to not get measles — our immune systems, now bolstered by welcome vaccines, are the reason that we can stay alive in a world full of infectious microbes.
— Jeanne Loring
From measles to dropping out of college
I got measles as a freshman in college in 1976 (in a dorm!) even after having the early vaccine. I was in hospital for a couple of days, thrown out of the dorm for several more, and it messed up my semester badly … and my eyesight. The next semester I caught mono, and that was pretty much it. I have no idea how I finished my classes, but I then dropped out.
Four years of crappy dead-end jobs before I pulled myself up and went back to school, eventually getting an engineering degree. This was a huge disruption to my life and my goals, and I’m just damned lucky I had supportive parents.
— Anonymous
Unspooling toilet paper to make it through measles
I had measles (at approximately 2 years old in Toronto) and rubella (at approximately 7 years old in California) — I’m 48 now. My mother was advised to delay my vaccines because she had severe rheumatoid arthritis and doctors were concerned it might exacerbate any predisposition. She’s highly educated and didn’t have any political leanings that would have swayed her.
I have a photo of me covered in measles spots and unspooling toilet paper, since it was the only thing that made me happy — I was evidently miserable. And I remember for rubella, the doctors came out to the car to examine me and my sister since they didn’t know what we had but it looked bad — the young pediatrician first had NO idea, and it wasn’t until the almost-retired doc saw us (and instantly recognized it) that we had a diagnosis.
I got an MMR shortly after … And then last year I had a negative titer for mumps and was just re-vaxxed.
— Rebecca Benghiat
‘Damn lucky to be alive’
In 1968, we all received a measles vaccine at school. A few days after receiving mine, I came down with what I was told was both types of measles at the same time.
One night during a major snowstorm, sub-zero temps and drifting snow, my fever started rapidly rising. My parents submerged me in ice water to no avail. Ambulances were not running. By the grace of God, my neighbor who worked for the county was told to take the snowplow home. My neighbor drove the snow plow to the hospital and my father followed him. I remember being given shots and being placed in ice at the hospital. They said my temperature was 109. I remember seeing Father Whitmer and hearing him say not to be afraid, that God was with me. I lost my vision for about three weeks. I could detect light and dark, but nothing else. I could not swallow. My parents fed me lots of lime Jell-O. I missed more than a month of school. My father later told me that the doctors at the hospital told him to prepare for the worst, they did not think I would live. My older siblings have told me that they had never seen our parents so agitated.
I do not know if I got the measles from the shot, or already was getting them when I got the shot. A few years ago, my doctor suggested that I get an MMR. I told her about my experience, so she suggested that I take a blood test to see if I still had antibodies. My score was in the high 70s.
I guess I am damn lucky to be alive.
— Elizabeth Ericksen
‘Even the light from the TV in the next room hurt my eyes’
I am 70 years old. I was in first grade when the first polio vaccine was available. Every child in my school went to the gym and we all lined up for the drop of vaccine on a sugar cube. I also got the smallpox vaccine in my left arm. I had a scar about the size of a quarter for decades.
As a child I was often sick. I remember the fine rash and high fevers from measles. Mumps was hard because my throat swelled so much it was hard to even swallow. Pertussis was hard, too. I remember coughing so much I would throw up. My mom used a steam vaporizer and put cotton balls with Vicks VapoRub at the opening to try to make it easier to breathe.
I went to school with the last generation affected by polio. Many children wore braces and used crutches. My oldest sister had polio when she was about 3 years old. She was blind for a time, but my mom took her to a faith healer and she gradually recovered her eyesight. But she always had to wear thick glasses that looked like the bottom of a coke bottle. One of her legs was shorter because the tendons contracted, and she always walked on her toes on the left foot.
I still remember walking home from school and seeing quarantine signs on houses where diphtheria or scarlet fever patients lived. It was pretty scary.
I got rubella when I was in the Army in 1973. I was sick for about three weeks. High fever, fine rash all over my body, and a sore throat that was so bad I could barely eat baby food. My eyes were so sensitive to light I had to stay in a dark room for almost three weeks. Even the light coming from the television in the next room hurt my eyes. I ended up with an ear infection so bad my eardrums had to be lanced, and also developed pneumonia. I would get exhausted just walking across the room.
My mother had a damaged heart from one of the childhood diseases. I am not sure if it was scarlet fever or diphtheria. As a child she had to take a nap at school each day, and her grandmother was instructed to feed her liver once a week because she was anemic. Her aunt was deaf and had very poor vision from another childhood illness. Her heart was damaged too, and she spent her life on the couch. I still have a pair of her glasses, though she died when my mom was only 10.
— Carmen E. Burds
‘I asked my mother if I could die!’
I am now 83, so it was a very long time ago that I got the measles — about 1956, I would guess. There was no vaccine at the time.
All I can remember is that I was so sick — headache, rash, lack of energy, general feeling of being too ill even to eat— that I asked my mother if I could die! I was really sick!
Somehow, she pulled me through it and, as far as I know, I didn’t have any long-term effects. But who knows?
— Martha Blaxall
‘Mumps was a whole different story’
Born in 1956 prior to any vaccines for MMR. I had measles as a 6-year-old in the spring of first grade. Just remember the rash all over my trunk and legs. I was most upset about losing my perfect attendance at school.
Mumps was a whole different story. I was probably 7 or 8 and I remember being miserably sick. My glands were hugely swollen and I was in bed for a good week. I was like a rag doll, lethargic and uncomfortable all the time. I’ve always said that was the sickest I remember being with a childhood illness.
So happy later generations did not have to suffer. I worry now about my pregnant niece and her unborn son and what he will face dealing with unvaccinated children.
— Mary Dollinger
The perks of mumps
I had the mumps as a child. Back then (the ’70s) shots for measles, mumps, and rubella were separate; there was no MMR. I was due to get the mumps vaccine when I actually developed a mild case of mumps in both cheeks. I thought it was great. I hated shots, was only mildly sick, and got to eat ice cream. So my vaccination record shows shots for the measles and rubella, and the date of my mumps infection.
— Lisa I.
The misery of mumps
I had the mumps when I was 13 in 1953. My sister and I were taking care of ourselves alone as my mom was in hospital and my dad had to work. Workmen were coming in and out of the house, but no one was concerned for our safety. The workmen were more concerned about the health of their fertility and stayed far away from us.
Please know you are miserable when you have the mumps!!!
As an intern in 1967/1968, I took care of a beautiful, comatose youngster with measles encephalitis … not a complication you would want to have!
I was also a youngster in the 1940s during the polio epidemic. I was an active kid but was kept away from my friends, was not allowed to go to the movies, to church, to bowl, etc. We kids lived isolated and in terror of being confined to an iron lung, or being paralyzed or being DEAD.
— Sandy Kirchner
‘I’ll never forget the swollen glands’
I recall getting mumps and chickenpox as a youngster (before age 10) growing up in northern New Jersey, before my parents moved my two siblings and me to the Richmond, Virginia, area in 1974. I’ll never forget the swollen glands and sore throat associated with mumps and the incessant itchiness of chickenpox, soothed by Caladryl lotion. I also recall receiving the rubella vaccine around the same time at the Catholic school I attended in West Orange, N.J.
Having had chickenpox, I’m grateful to have been able to get the shingles vaccine, and I’m equally grateful that I could be inoculated to avoid dread diseases still prevalent in Asia and Africa, which I visited numerous times during my previous work over 26 years of service with a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
— Pete Larkin
‘The first days of the illness are a complete void in my memory’
I had measles around age 3-4 years (1950-51). I remember being quarantined in a darkened room — my brother must have slept elsewhere. The first days of the illness are a complete void in my memory. I gathered from my parents that I was very ill, and they were very worried. No doctor saw me. I seemed to awaken at some point because I remember light coming into the room and being ravenously hungry. I even asked for my favorite food — meatballs. And I remember at that time my mother being very happy and relieved that I was recovering.
My wife contracted measles at summer camp around age 10 years (1958). She was immediately sent home, and she reports being extraordinarily ill for quite some time.
I contracted rubella in the spring of 1964 when there was a major epidemic. I really did not know I had it until I noticed a very faint pink rash on my body and had a runny nose. I do not remember any fever. A number of us had rubella at the same time. It seemed to be a benign illness for me.
My wife had moderately severe chickenpox around age 33 (1980). She was exposed at a party where a family with active chickenpox was allowed to be present. My wife was sick for a month with the itchy rash; she spread the chickenpox to our daughter and then our son, who had mild cases. In those pre-vaccine days, little health information was available to inform others about quarantine.
One of the first patients I saw as a pediatric intern (1972) was a boy around age 10 who had measles subsclerosing panencephalitis and was in a coma. He must have acquired measles prior to the vaccine availability around 1969, and he suffered this major neurological complication. He died sometime during my internship.
I worked at the Division of Biologic Standards at NIH (as a summer intern) when Drs. Meyer and Parkman developed the rubella vaccine. During the epidemic in 1964 when I had rubella, it is reported that about 11,000 pregnancies were miscarried, 2,100 newborns died, and 20,000 were born with birth defects all due to congenital rubella syndrome.
— Mark A. Goldstein, M.D., founding chief emeritus, Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital; editor-in-chief, Current Pediatrics Reports
Six months to recover from hepatitis A
In March of 2019, I was hospitalized for two days with a severe case of hepatitis A. I had been to my primary care doctor’s office twice in the week prior complaining of fever, epigastric pain, and extreme fatigue. Unfortunately, as is the experience of many women, my complaints were dismissed, with the doctors saying it was “just a virus.” I tried to recover at home with recommended “self-care,” but after three weeks of ongoing symptoms together with dramatic weight loss and severe dehydration, I presented to the ER only to find that my liver enzymes were in the thousands. I was immediately admitted and the hospital staff worked to identify the cause. Initially, the doctors thought it was a gall bladder problem, but upon further investigation and bloodwork, they determined that I had an acute case of hepatitis A. I was shocked, given I had zero risk factors and had not left central Pennsylvania during the incubation period. To this day, despite extensive contract tracing by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, I still do not know how I contracted the infection.
I missed almost a month of work, and it took over six months for me to recover and for my liver enzymes to return to normal. I had just run a 1:29 half marathon three months prior to getting sick, demonstrating that a high level of fitness did not prevent infection or severe illness. Eating healthy and being fit does not protect against pathogens, despite what some people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. think.
I’m a scientist and very pro-vaccine but had never been offered the hepatitis A vaccine at any well visit. Had anyone recommended the vaccine, I would have gladly taken it. The one good thing that came of my experience is that many of my family and friends went out and got vaccinated against hepatitis A.
— Cheryl Keller Capone
Healing while listening to the radio
All I remember about the measles was being in bed in a darkened room and passing the time listening to serials on the radio. I think I was in grade school. I’ll be 91 next month.
— Elaine King
A bout with encephalitis
I had measles before there was a vaccine. I developed encephalitis and was hospitalized for weeks. Years later I had occasional aphasia symptoms, but they eventually went away.
— Phyllis Greenberger
The long-term effects of chickenpox
I am 74 years old.
I do not recall having had measles or chickenpox. I do recall caring for my younger brother when he had measles and never contracting it from him. I also cared for my two sons when they had chickenpox in the early ’90s before there were vaccines. I would have had them vaccinated if the vaccines had come out before they contracted the virus. My older son ended up with a secondary infection in his tonsils and had to have them removed as antibiotics did not rid him of the secondary infection.
While I was raising kids, I had other parents deliberately try to expose their children to kids with chickenpox just to get it over with. I was shocked. That was not my mindset. And one woman told me that these childhood diseases are good for kids, that they should get them. Another told me that the polio epidemic was blown out of proportion and was not as bad as depicted. I remember being cautioned as a child about polio. I remember also standing in line to get the vaccine as a sugar cube.
I did get the mumps, twice, back to back, first one side and then the other side and under the chin (probably fifth or sixth grade age).
To my knowledge I have never had the whooping cough. When I was born in 1951 a couple of my siblings had the whooping cough, so I ended up living with my paternal grandparents for the first three months of my life.
— Mary Calmes