Men, This Blog is for You

 And I know there will be women read it because it is addressed to men.....

I am very close to my two nephews. And worry about them ,a great deal.  

One nephew is still living in Lubbock. The Panhandle is his world now. And I look for him to be in that part of the state for a while, if not the rest of his life. 

Near Lubbock is where they are having the measles outbreak. And say what you want, it is because people are not vaccinating their kids. And I am not going to argue with you about vaccines or not. I am just going to tell you my personal experience. 

I was born before there were vaccine for measles. 

And in the late 1950s, I had the measles. And thought I was them immune, or at least my parents thought I was. 

Trouble was I had a Gamma globulin shot about a week before I was diagnosed with the measles. So, I had a light case of the illness. Gamma globulin injections are usually given in an attempt to temporarily boost a patient's immunity against disease.

That said, my doctor thought I would be immune to the illness. 

A number of years later, I get the measles. 

I mean I got a case of the measles. It may have been the sickest I have ever been. 

I contracted it right as school let out for the Summer Break, and I missed a large chunk of my Little League season. ( And my LL Team was the only one not named after a Major League Baseball team, the Grey Sox...Today, it'd be pretty cool, but then, we were the pariah. )

I was bed-ridden. Had a rash all over my body. A very high fever. My eyes were effected, and I could not watch TV. I had a cough and if I had contracted it today, my lungs were so bad off, I would have been hospitalized and placed on oxygen. But it was a different era. 

I was so sick, and this happens, even though it is more with mumps, I had orchitis. It is rare.

Orchitis, is a swelling of the testicles. Generally both, but I was lucky and it only was in one. If you get it, it generally means, if you have gone through puberty, sterility. And at least one of my "boys" works. 

It felt like someone had kicked hell out of my 'boys.' It was so painful....

Measles can kill you, as one child in West Texas has died from the illness. A number of others are in the hospital. And generally this is from respiratory troubles, not because the kids need to be isolated. You can isolate at home. 

130 kids in West Texas have the illness. And now, schoolkids in New Jersey are being diagnosed with measles. 

Many times there are lingering problems from measles. Lung troubles, the high fever often causing other damage including to the brain, and  kidneys. 

I have a lingering problem from a high temp here many years later. If I were to tell you, you wouldn't believe it.

Folks, I know you're afraid of side effects from the vaccines, but until you have had the measles, you'd never understand.