Still Hangin' in There

Our son was making progress. Learning to walk, making gestures, brightening, and piles of other hints that all was well. He was trying new foods, we were starting to potty train. . . I was in hog heaven. Living the dream. A beautiful wife, an even more beautiful child. . . The only thing missing would be some uplifting elevator music playing in the background!

The wife had convinced me that we should be very careful with vaccinations, because she had been doing some reading on the Net. She also told me that her father/uncle, (don't get me started on the family tree here, think about a wiring diagram of New York City as envisioned by Dali) had been allergic to Penicillin, so we should be careful with any medications that might be prescribed for our son.

This still wasn't enough of a warning, and the Net was still just becoming a popular way to post information. I mean really, the wife was using the Alta Vista Search Engine! Flashback!

(If this seems like watching a train wreck, just wait, it gets better or worse, depending on your point of view.)

The wife wanted to avoid vaccinations all together. I was still "The great dupe" and thought that vaccinating was the ONLY way to keep my child safe from all those bad bugs. Anyway, our pediatrician told us we should wait several months before getting his first vaccine, pushing off the decision to vaccinate or not. My favorite, procrastinate!

We waited until our son was 7 months old before we got his only vaccine. The Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine. Here is a link to an article describing the vaccine and the disease it causes, er, um. . . prevents.

I was at work and got the call from my wife.

"He hasn't woke up since his shot! He's been asleep for more than 2 hours. What do you think? Maybe I should call the doctor's office."

I agreed, although for some reason this still didn't raise a big, bright, red flag for me.

She called the office, and got a nurse who told her to, "Relax and enjoy it honey."

Our son slept for 8 hours after that shot. The wife couldn't get him to wake up for 8 hours.

I'm now convinced that that one incident was the straw that broke the camel's back. He had been struggling before that with the usual rounds of antibiotics for colds, and an eye infection that didn't want to go away, but this was too much. I had forgotten how much this part still pisses me off.