My 13-year-old self – in middle school, with a broken arm, bullied by girls in my class. Could it get worse? Yes, it could. I got the measles.
Many people today think of measles as a disease from the past, something that disappeared decades ago. But people with measles carry one of the most contagious viruses known. The virus spreads through the air when someone who has it coughs or sneezes and can linger in a room for hours. If you are not immune and are exposed, there is a very high chance you will get sick.
As the youngest child in the family, I had the benefit of my mother’s experience of raising my brother without the polio vaccine, the mumps vaccine or any of the vaccines introduced in the 1950s. My mother herself suffered from the whooping cough and nearly died. She was determined for me to have any vaccine that was available.
So in 1963, when the measles vaccine came out, I was a baby. My mother took me to get vaccinated. She did all the right things. All was well.
At the time, the measles vaccine was brand new and a major medical breakthrough. Before it existed, nearly every child got measles. Thousands were hospitalized every year in the United States, and hundreds of children died. Vaccination changed that story almost overnight.
In 1976, right after I broke my arm, I broke out in a rash. My pediatrician diagnosed it as just a bad rash and prescribed a soap for comfort and healing. But that didn’t work. I felt awful, had a high fever and was very sick. Yet the doctor didn’t see the symptoms as measle since I had been vaccinated.
No one else in my school had anything like it. I suffered for 2 weeks, until some others in my school got something similar and were diagnosed with measles. How could that happen? I was immunized as a baby.
The measles vaccine – given as part of the combination MMR vaccine – contains a live, weakened virus. That’s what produces immunity. But in East Texas in 1963 or 1964, we received a batch of vaccine that contained a virus that was not live. It was dead. That meant it produced no immunity. I received that batch.
Even though I got the vaccine, I still got sick—and it was awful. It showed me a tough lesson: sometimes, even when you do everything you can, you can still get sick.
Today, vaccines are much better. Measles vaccines are very effective, and by getting vaccinated, we prevent serious illness and help protect future generations from going through what I went through. Two doses of the modern MMR vaccine protect about 97 percent of people from measles. But the protection only works if people actually get the vaccine. When vaccination rates drop, measles comes roaring back.
Since I didn’t know I had the measles, I read every book I could find while I was home sick. As an avid reader, I could distract myself from feeling awful just by reading. After I recovered, my eyesight became noticeably worse. I needed a whole new prescription. What happened?
I learned later that measles is a leading cause of childhood blindness. The disease can affect eyes in a variety of ways – most all of them very serious. Since no one knew I had the measles, no one knew to check my eyes or to try to protect them from the virus.
Measles is a very scary disease. It can kill; it can permanently disable. It can leave you blind. And blindness is only one of the risks. It can cause pneumonia, swelling of the brain and long-term neurological damage.
At 13, life can be confusing and challenging. It’s hard to be 13. I wish I only had to deal with the broken arm and the rude girls in my class. I was lucky. I survived. But my experience showed me why vaccines matter: vaccines keep people from getting really sick and help families avoid the hardest parts of diseases like measles.
Life is precious. Don’t play around with your health. Get vaccinated.
I got another measles vaccine this year, even though I probably have some immunity from the virus itself from when I was sick. But I wanted to be sure. My husband also got a measles vaccine to reinforce his immunity.
As seniors in our 60s, we don’t want to wonder if we’re immune. You don’t need that question haunting you or your loved ones either. Get the shot.
My mother believed that if protection exists, you use it. She was right.
