I know a number of grown men and women who grovel at the sight of a syringe being prepared for use. It's amazing how we never stop needing injections even after getting dozens of jabs.
I can still remember the day mom took me to the health clinic when I was 5 years. I had no idea why we went but I'm sure if i did, I'd have bolted right out of that building before you could say vaccine. The irony was that I had not sensed danger until the syringe was unleashed because all this time I was with Nurse who was our neighbour. My naive brain thought we went to visit her at work the way we visit dad in his office. Let's just say I didn't talk to our nurse neighbour for a while because my trust in her was lost. Injections hurt like a bee sting and the aftermath is what makes us uncomfortable for quite a bit yet we do this because we want to be healthy. How much more for our babies?
It seems cruel that we celebrate our baby's first year of life with rounds of injections and oral vaccines. If there was a way babies could get immunized without the injections and its aftermath, I would certainly head that way. My little baby is headed to the clinic to have another round of vaccines and the last visit is still fresh in my mind. The way Baby cried his little heart out when two jabs got right into his tiny thighs, I instantly felt mortified. He cried as if he was telling me how betrayed he felt because I allowed this to happen to him.
What made it worse as that he was excited, grinning, gurgling and cooing at me right before it happened. I think he must have thought I'm about to give him a bath, something he takes to like a fish to water. It suffices to mention that I spent the next 48 hours consoling him and reassuring the child that the bad man with the ouchies will not get him. Sad thing is, Baby has a long way to go if i go by the immunization card. Too bad Baby is too young to be comforted with ice-cream.
What made it worse as that he was excited, grinning, gurgling and cooing at me right before it happened. I think he must have thought I'm about to give him a bath, something he takes to like a fish to water. It suffices to mention that I spent the next 48 hours consoling him and reassuring the child that the bad man with the ouchies will not get him. Sad thing is, Baby has a long way to go if i go by the immunization card. Too bad Baby is too young to be comforted with ice-cream.
Heartbreaking as this routine is, these are the necessary ouchies that we must put our children through so that their little bodies have a fighting chance in this diseased earth. It makes me wonder whether our world has become more diseased or our immune systems has corroded deplorably. All I know is either health providers or the pharmaceutical companies or both are making a killing selling vaccines expensively.Thanks to organizations like Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, vaccines like Rotavirus will be available to all people from all the corners of the world. Possibly one day, vaccines will be free for all. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Decades of Vaccines Initiative The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Decades of Vaccines Initiative
