By Brigitte Brown
For The Beachcomber

I remember waking up as a little girl because my sister was crying. I did what twins do, crawled into bed with her, and I noticed something was wrong. She was hot. Mother put me in my parents’ big double bed while she slept in the room with my sister. The next morning she felt my forehead and sent me off to school.

I came home to find our doctor and a public health nurse there. They said that my twin was very sick with something called “measles.” There was a new medicine that could prevent this sickness, the doctor told us, and it might be too late for me to have it, but we could try. I remember sleeping in my parents’ bed for many nights; I remember my father crying and mother’s hushed voice outside the bedroom saying, “Stop it, Hans! You mustn’t let the children see your fear!”

I don’t remember much else, because I got sick, too, although not as sick as my twin. I remember missing a lot of school. And when I went back, many other kids were out sick. We heard that several children in our district never came back. And I remember one classmate who had to transfer to a special school because he lost his hearing after getting measles. My twin and I were lucky. We recovered.

I remember the long line of children and mothers snaking around our school auditorium waiting our turn to eat sugar cubes doused in medicine to prevent polio. I remember an elderly friend of mother’s calling vaccines a “miracle,” and how she teared up when she shared how she lost two siblings to childhood illness.

Three summers later we vacationed at a lake. I woke up early in the morning because my neck hurt. I had mumps. I remember being in bed for a long time feeling wretched and my sister complaining that I had spoiled our vacation.

I remember a girl in our school who used crutches because she survived polio, and a classmate’s older sister showing us photos of a man in an iron lung. I felt a claustrophobic terror seeing them. She said the man was her uncle.

Years later, I remember the searing grief of standing beside a friend whose young daughter had died of meningitis. The girl had awakened in the night, gone into her parents’ room and told them she didn’t feel well. My friend said, “I did what parents do — I let her crawl into bed with us.” She died in the hospital 48 hours later.

I remember how vaccines became the saving grace of a generation of kids. I remember, too, the mistakes that were made and headlines about Japanese children who died because of them.

But medicine learned. Vaccines evolved and became safer. Childhood diseases — mumps, measles, polio, meningitis — became things of the past. And we forgot. Our younger siblings never knew about them because they were vaccinated.

When I became a mother, I never once questioned immunizing my children. I didn’t want them to go through what we did. My best friend’s brother Nick says he would never question his kids getting vaccinated, either. But he laughs bitterly when he says this; you see, he never had kids. The mumps he got at age 18 left him sterile.

But now vaccines have become the brunt of fury, of conjecture, of controversy. Increasing numbers of mothers who have no idea, who couldn’t know the horror of the illnesses prevented by vaccines, are opting not to immunize. Ten years ago, a nurse friend commented to me, “If this no-vaccine trend continues, soon there will be a resurgence of the childhood illnesses that killed or crippled so many of our generation.”

Sadly, she was right.

If you don’t want to immunize your children, don’t. But please, make the decision knowing all sides of the story. Go by facts, not fear and conjecture. Remember that you as a young person were either immunized or enjoyed herd immunity from the other kids around you who were vaccinated.

Talk to one of us oldsters who went through the horrors of measles, meningitis or mumps outbreaks. Talk with our older siblings who survived the horrors of polio. Read up on the potential side effects of vaccines. But then read up on the risks of measles, mumps and meningitis. You’ll find things like deafness, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, blindness and death.

And please don’t get angry with parents who would rather not have unvaccinated children around theirs at school, birthday parties or in clinics because of the risks they pose. They are only too aware of the consequences.

Make your decisions with all the facts. Or call me. Come, share a cup of tea. I’ll tell you my stories.

— Brigitte Brown is a 30-year Vashon resident who worked at Vashon Family Practice for 10 years and is currently a volunteer EMT and a medical education grant writer.