We’re off to see the doctor!
Apr 29th, 2008 by Bethany
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I took the kids to see a local pediatrician this morning. It took me a long time to choose one and make an appointment, partly because I kept hoping I’d get someone to recommend a good one to me who takes our insurance. People have recommended a couple of good ones, but they don’t take our insurance. Finally, I just picked a practice based on proximity to our apartment, then (of the four in the office) chose the pediatrician who was male because Degen seems to be less shy around men. Great way to choose, no? But, we won’t have this insurance many more months because Colin’s not going to keep teaching at this school next year, and I wanted to make sure we had the kids’ physical status checked and get shots updated.
Speaking of shots, I’m going to say something rather controversial. My mother didn’t have my three youngest siblings vaccinated back in the early 90s, I guess because she questioned whether all the ingredients in the immunizations were safe. When I had kids, I called her to get her advice on shots and she said that since she’d gone to medical school and seen more research and information about the newer vaccines she’d decided that they’re safe and she’d have the kids immunized now if she had time. However, she said that she thinks it’s somewhat unnescessary to immunize babies unless they’re going to be in daycare or another high-risk place for getting diseases. She suggested that, since I’d be staying home with them and their access to infected people would be extremely limited, I might want to wait a year or so before having them get their shots so that their little immune systems would be more developed when they deal with the onslaught. So, that’s what Colin and I decided to do.
We started Degen’s schedule of shots at a year and Maggie got her first shots today (18 months) and they’ve both been exceptionally healthy. When our new doctor here questioned me about why these were Maggie’s first shots, I explained the above to him, and he (understandably) told me that he disagreed with my decision and told me that “there’s a web site of women like you telling their stories of how they regret their decision to not immunize their children.” The obligatory guilt trip over after I smiled sympathetically, he mentioned in a rather surprised tone that my kids are really actually very healthy. He took a look in their ears and down their throats, told me they’re growing well, asked me if they fight a lot (they don’t), and handed me some informational paperwork on potty training. Then he sent in the nurse to do the shots.
At our old doctor’s office in Utah (American Fork Clinic, Dr. Hoggard), they had a great nursing staff. When they did a big set of shots (two or more at a time), they would send in two nurses and administer two shots simultaneously, efficiently and effectively. It was awesome. The nurse at my new doctor’s office did a great job today, but she was only one person, and Maggie got four sticks in succession in her chubby little legs. I prefer the other system. Maggie didn’t scream until the third shot, but then she made it known that she was not interested in putting up with us any more. All the shots finished, she screamed and cried for about three more minutes and then I gave her a sucker that the doctor had handed me for her on his way out and she quickly became cheerful again. The one odd thing about the process was that the nurse explained the normal sysmptoms and when to worry or not about her shots as she gave the shots. I heard nothing. I was busy trying to calm Maggie down to hear her over Maggie’s screams. Luckily, she gave me some paperwork explaining everything (I hope!) she’d just said. Of course, I was so distraught about my injured baby that I forgot to take the paperwork with me and didn’t realize it until I’d gotten both kids buckled happily into their car seats and had to undo my heroic work and go back into the office and ask another nurse to go searching for the papers. And no, I didn’t know which room number we’d been in. And then we repeated the walk-to-the-car and buckle-up processes.
Degen is really into chivalry, to my delight and chagrin. He likes to hold doors open for people as they enter or leave, and it’s very cute and a habit I want to encourage. The downside comes when I’m trying to corral both him and his sister into or out of a building and he wants to stay and hold the door open for the next 10 people while I try to figure out why he refuses to obey my command to “come!” That happened to us today BOTH times we left the doctor’s office on the way to the car. An ancient gentleman who was going into the office was confused about why Degen wanted to hold the door open for him–hopefully he wasn’t insulted.
I’ve written some pretty vitriolic posts about the anti-vaccination movement (or the hesitant-to-vaccinate movement, etc.) and I guess my whole problem with it is that every person I’ve encountered who is a proponent can’t actually cite any evidence other than someone told them so. Whereas the medical community has hundreds of studies demonstrating not only the efficacy of vaccines, but also their safety. The “suspect” ingredient, thimerosal, was removed from vaccines and was still shown to be safe anyway.
Now, Bethany, you know I love and respect your family. But other than his apparently bad attitude, the doc was on the money. Vaccinations are the best medical innovation in terms of lives and abilities saved. Moreover, unvaccinated children are a hazard to the community’s health because one of the secondary effects of vaccines is herd immunity. That is, because everyone is immune the germ itself cannot survive and spread.
But I know in the circle of moms you run with, your crew, you’ll be able to know what the facts are and share accordingly.
Love the blog though. Its great to hear what my friends were doing.
Lars, I thought I might get a comment from you and I’m so pleased you did.
I’d like to clarify that I am not anti-vaccination (as demonstrated by my voluntary less-than-easy experience above), or even hesitant-to-vaccinate. I planned all along to vaccinate my kids, unless I found that it would somehow hurt them–which I didn’t. I did speak with more than one doctor (my mother is not officially a doctor until the end of next month, for those of you who don’t know me well) before making my decision to postpone giving my kids shots, which may count as “someone told me so,” but I did get the hear-say from professionals. My kids are in an extra-low risk group, and when I consulted with my mom on the subject she said that if my kids were going to be in daycare or any other regular interaction with lots of other (possibly sick) people she’d recommend that I get their shots on schedule. I’ve therefore been careful to get their shots going before/when they enter their first group class at church. Mom said the same thing you just did about thimerosal, but suggested that I make sure that the shots used weren’t “leftover” shots from the doctor’s storage from when thimerosal was allowed, just in case. I didn’t have to worry about that since all the doctors I’ve worked with are so busy that they have to order new supplies of shots often and the old meds are long gone.
I don’t think my doctor yesterday had a bad attitude–I think he was compassionately and correctly giving me his professional opinion. That’s what he’s paid to do, and I appreciated it. I just felt that he didn’t know all the factors or the whole story about my family, and that he’s obligated by training and legal liability to put us in the box with everyone else who should get their shots on schedule. I knew when I decided to do things differently that I’d have to deal with that and it didn’t hurt my feelings nor make me think less of the doctor.
I’m assume that even though you disagree with my decision to wait until my kids immune systems are developed to vaccinate them, you will agree with me that people need to take responsibility for being educated about and making decisions about their family’s and their own health care. As far as I can tell, medical therapies and standards are generally based on what’s best for the “lowest common denominator” group–on what’s going to help and not hurt most patients in a given category. That’s encouraging in a lot of ways and for a lot of reasons, but it also makes customization for individuals (especially those in unusual situations) very difficult. With the legal issues facing doctors if they recommend anything out of the norm, we have to each be responsible for discussing any options with our doctors, getting second opinions, and weighing the risks and benefits before agreeing to participate in therapies. I think your problem with the way most people deal with this is that they refuse to do the necessary research and don’t (as Colin says) “ask the question all the way.” We hear something in the grapevine and instead of getting a second (or third) opinion from a doctor and looking up the data behind whatever we’ve heard, we panic, villainize our doctors, and refuse to go any farther into verifying what we’ve heard. So, the moral of this comment to anyone who has heard about something that’s made them refuse their doctor’s advice or is worried about something their doctor has recommended is: be sure to “ask all the way.” And sincere prayer about the subject goes a long way, too.