Vaccination Part Deux

Thank you to those who have shown their support of Reason (ie, support of Me). Just thought I would add this info which I picked up from the clinic when we had Lamia vaccinated. Quite interesting. This is just one of the vaccines Lamia has had so far.

Diphtheria – contagious bacteria spread by droplets; causes severe throat and breathing difficulties

Effects of disease: About 1 in 15 patients dies. The bacteria release a toxin, which can produce nerve paralysis and heart failure.
Side effects of vaccination: DTaP vaccine: About 1 in 10 has local inflammation or fever. Serious adverse events are very rare. 

OK. So if we vaccinate her, she has a 10% chance of fever and some inflammation. Awww, poor kid. If we do not vaccinate her she has a 0% chance of inflammation or fever, but a ~6.5% chance of death. Well shit, I would hate for her to get inflamed, and the chances of her dying are almost half that of fever and inflammation, so it is way better for her to die…. I mean really, what kind of fucktard thinks this way?

On the upside I guess they are all up for Darwin Awards.

Vaccination and community responsibility

For the sake of having something to call her in this blog, other than “my daughter”, I shall henceforth refer to my parented child as Lamia, because she possesses my soul.

So, on to public health. This may become a rant, and it may piss some people off. Lamia is vaccinated, and if you do not vaccinate, you probably want to stop reading right here.

Do not say I did not warn you.

OK.

Those self-righteous, SELFISH pricks who do not vaccinate their kids irritate me beyond belief. Their logic for not vaccinating? No reason to, because the incidence of disease is so low, and the vaccination might affect their child adversely, so why take the risk? On the surface it sounds reasonable, until you realize THE INCIDENCE OF DISEASE IS LOW BECAUSE THE REST OF US ARE VACCINATING OUR KIDS, YOU IDIOT! These parasites are relying on you and me to put our children at risk in order to keep their children safe. Worse still, the spread of this way of thinking could cause a public health crisis, as the number of people vaccinating dwindles, causing incidence of disease to increase. Your responsibility is to your child, yes, but it is also to the community you live in. What happens in your community affects your child also, so yank your head out of the sand and go do your piece for humanity.

No, I really do suck

I have not seen Sprog in almost two years. Worse still, I have no desire to do so. Yeah. I suck.

Last time I saw Sprog, things ended badly. Things started badly also (I was in withdrawal so I looked and felt pretty sick) but they ended worse (I left for 2 hours to attend a NA meeting but made a detour to get high with a friend and never went back). That is the last time I saw him.

I guess that is part of the reason I have no desire to visit. I find the thought of facing him, after letting him down like that, hard to deal with. Scared of rejection, you know. But also, there is my daughter. I am concentrating all my energy on getting things right with her. Which of course means I am more likely to screw the relationship up totally by being one of those helicopter parents. If she cries, my gut screws up, and I feel like her distress is some kind of failure on my part. I have to fix it for her, because I am Daddy, and Daddy fixes stuff. With this kid, fixing stuff is my job. MY job. With Sprog, fixing stuff is someone else’s job. And so I do not feel like I have anything to contribute to his life. Spending time working on my relationship with Sprog reduces the time I have available to spend with my daughter, so I am short-changing her if I think about Sprog.

Some might argue that Sprog does need me in his life. But he already has a dad. Why should he get a dad and a half and leave my daughter with only half a dad?

I think Nicole wrote about something like this awhile ago. At the time, I thought dividing time between the two made perfect sense. But now I am living it? Not so sure.