Unexpectedly Extensive Thoughts on Immunisations

This is quite a controversial topic, so just keep in mind that these are my opinions and I have the right to have them and you have the right to have your own.

I took Jake to get his 3 month immunisations today. A few weeks late because it took me a few weeks to make the phone call to book him in, and it didn’t help that the first time I finally made the call they stuck me on hold for longer than I was prepared to wait. It is hard to make an appointment to go and inflict pain on your child.

So why do it? I believe one of my friends isn’t, and there’s people in my online group intentionally putting it off until they believe their child is ready. With us there wasn’t even a conversation about it except for whether we were willing to pay to get the TB immunisation as well, but we weren’t, and if it wasn’t free perhaps we wouldn’t do it at all, but that’s an issue for a me in an alternate universe to contend with, not this me.

I read once (I can’t remember where) a compelling arguement that you are not only immunising for your child’s sake, but also for your community’s sake. If everyone was immunised then the threat would be eradicated, or something like that. But of course, when you’re inflicting this on someone that can’t understand what’s happening, can’t voice an opinion, and can’t see how a little pain now could protect them from greater pain or even death in the future, then you start questioning why you’re doing this and is it really the right decision.

My personal experiences with immunisations: I remember we got them at school, I don’t remember the pain. I remember I got the tetanus shot when I managed to hack my hand with a tomahawk, but again I don’t remember the pain part. So I don’t believe I’m harming Jake mentally by having him immunised.

When I was nineteen there was a big fuss over meningitis, and vaccinations became free for under 20s so I was nudged to go get it. Three injections were required. I thought, hey, it’s free, why not? The first shot near paralysed my left arm from pain, and I was working in a job that needed two hands. I couldn’t bring myself to get the other two injections; I had to work, and I didn’t see it as a real enough risk.

When I was in my third trimester I was offered the swine flu vaccination. Despite the real possible threat to my baby I weighed up the options and got it because it had the potential to protect him without him directly taking the pain. Not to mention I hate getting the flu, and if I can protect myself from a big one for free that’s gotta be good right. It didn’t really hurt that much either, though I couldn’t know the pain factor for the decision making part. And I believe it paid off. Hubby was really crook, Jake and I didn’t get it; I believe he had swine flu.

Of course there’s the miniscule risk that it could all go very badly. My cousin’s ex-flatmate is in a wheelchair because things went terribly wrong. But I believe there is greater risk in not getting them.

And then there is the people that opt to not get their children immunised (because it’s not mandatory here in NZ). Are they letting the whole country down? Some say they are, but I don’t believe so. If everyone was immunised then noone would get the illnesses and we would slip into a false sense of security: we’d come to believe the illnesses didn’t exist anymore. Odds are the immunisations stop being government funded. Then we’d get epidemics, or even pandemics, of old illnesses rather than new ones.

In NZ it would happen quickly. It happened in Palmy a few years back. Someone at Boys High contracted TB, suddenly the whole city was at risk, after all, if Boys High has it, so does Girls High, and it’s all two degrees of separation in NZ so really there was a potential of an epidemic. I was informed that TB wasn’t a major issue in NZ and so it’s not a government funded immunisation, but seriously, we have a possum problem, thus we have a TB problem (no offense Aussies, we love the possums that are in their own country )

And so immunisations come and go. The meningitis one they were pushing is now not included in general immunisations, but this year whooping cough is a predicted epidemic so it’s included. And around it goes. Basically, there needs to be people getting sick to make the government fork out the money to protect the population. Yes, I feel for the children that don’t get immunised and then get sick, but sadly it’s for the greater good.

More than that though, I feel for the nurses who have to stick needles in screaming babies. I only have to deal with Jake screaming, they have to do it all the time, they’re the ones inflicting the pain and every time they must also have that same fear we do: What if something goes wrong?

Meant to be Writing

I have been writing. My 750 words have been written for the day (sixth day running, I’m impressed with myself), and I’ve done a few hundred on my HalfNoC novel which really needs a working name. I’ll work on that.

It took several days of cogitation but finally I found the character that is going to carry this story, so after writing 1k yesterday I signed up for HalfNoC. My story is about a women who is betrayed by her sister then is forced to accept that everything she was raised to believe is morally wrong and she must find the courage to betray her country in the hope that she can initiate change. (I read somewhere it’s good to write a sentence encapsulating what your work is about so you have something to refer back to when you lose your way. This is my very rusty sentence I just wrote and it’s subject to change as I get to know my characters and their world. If you know where I read this can you let me know where it was?)

I did the math, and I have to write 1k a day to win. That’s not really all that much. I know I can do it. It’s maybe an hours work if the words are flowing (like yesterday), several hours work if I don’t really know what direction it’s going in (like today).

I need to find some tactics for finding my direction so when I sit down to write the words are right there. It’s much nicer to write that way, more calming and yet also more exciting, somehow. I don’t like writing when my only motivation is that I have to produce ‘X amount of words’ by the end of the day. The time drags, and the words feel awkward as I force them onto the page, almost as if they’ve become stickers that have lost most of their stick so each word has to be pressed hard and if it refuses to stick completely an alternative has to be found. It’s tiring, and for me that’s not what writing is meant to be like. There’s also the ‘giving up’ part of writing like that too, or, mid-work procrastination, like what I’m doing now. It’s not good for the writing.

Now to non-writing related topics for a moment. We got Jake’s cot yesterday (we tried to on Fri but it wouldn’t fit in my brother’s car) and so he’s now sleeping in that. He settled himself in half an hour the first sleep he had in it and we thought ‘awesome, this will be easy’. Then he was put to bed for his night sleep and he refused to settle. He was upset for about an hour and a half, until finally I opted to give him another bottle to settle him and he fell asleep on me so I put him in his cot and he slept for about six hours (yay!). After his night feed he settle quickly because he was mostly asleep when he was put in there, and the same story for this morning. I’m hoping that if I put him in there wide awake he’ll be able to settle himself now.

He’s just woken up so off to be a mum .

Fighting my way back

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day, per se, I was just really bad. Jake was wonderful, as always. Dale helped out heaps. And my little brother came round in the evening and bought us dinner Noodle Canteen, nomnomnom.

By the evening I had scrambled up from complete shit to just having a bad day. Not great, but better.

Jake slept for 11 hours last night. He went to bed at 9:15pm. Grumbled enough to wake me at 2am and 3am but neither time was convincing enough to get me out of bed, and then the next time he woke me it was past 8am! First thing I asked was if Dale had fed him last night, the second was whether I had fed him. Even I struggle to go 11 hours with no food! lol.

Today I’m feeling a little more level. Just chilling out. The weather has eased up, so we’re gonna get out of the house at some point . Should probably get some housework done too.

3105 Words Later

and I have a first draft of what I think is actually only part of a bigger story. I think my character (who’s name is Daisy, which sucks, but she convinced me it works for her so I didn’t push the issue) has more to show me, and is just letting me have a bit of a breather before the next part.

I don’t much like the end. Not what happens, just how I’ve written it, plus it needs thorough editing, so I’ve still got plenty of work to do. If it needs a genre I think it would fit into the urban fantasy box, which is exciting cos I’ve never written urban fantasy before.

Who am I kidding? Every aspect of this story is exciting for me right now. It’s just leapt out of me, and adventure every step of writing what I have so far, and holds promise for more. What more could a writer want?

In other news, Jake is sleeping awesomely. He slept from 10:30pm til 7:30am, and is having a pretty sleepy day too. I have to brave the wind and rain to go up to the post office. I was hoping hubby would be home early from work, but no luck there, so I’ll have to take Jake out in the nasty weather too. The pushchair’s raincover is getting well used anyway.

I’m feeling good. Really really good. Level. It’s a little scary. I think I’m afraid of losing it. And of never getting to this point without meds. It’s opened up a lot of questions to ask my psychiatrist on Monday.