#provaccination

So I learned today that my grandfather who has shingles (a painful condition that sometimes comes out in those who had chicken pox sometime in their lives) was told by his doctor that some people have shingles the rest of their lives. This is after 9 months of living with this hoping it'll be like many who only have it for a few painful months to a year. And this affects my grandfather everyday, in every activity he wants to do. This is a man who creates furniture, golfs with friends, travels, renovated his house by hand, can swim out to the point I cannot see him at Shuswap Lake. I love this man, and want him happy. But now his doctor is even skeptical. And it makes me think, the chicken pox vaccine came out when I was about ten. Lots of kids and myself had already had chicken pox by this time. It was too late for us. As we age, yes we could get the shingles vaccine that has popped up in the last year or so. But can you imagine if we could skip the chance of getting either altogether? If that had been an option for my great grandparents when my grandpa and his brothers were little, wouldn't they take it? Then there are people right now, who, in their own arrogance, refuse to vaccinate their kids. Whether the excuse is money, or autism, or their own choice, it's bullshit. You have it readily available here, more than lots of other countries can say! You don't think it'll be good for your kid? Look at the people who line up in droves so their kids don't have to live through disease and sickness in other places! You really think you're so goddamn well educated on how vaccines work or don't? That your kid really is that special goddamn snowflake that won't catch anything simply because they 'belong' to you? Imagine your kid only catches chicken pox. It heals. Time goes on, you die. That kid of yours is 75, and now has shingles. They lose their energy. They feel horrible and in pain for months on end. Their doctor tells them it may last their whole lives. They cannot live how they want to with all the time they may or may not have left. All because you figured vaccines were a no no. Anti-vaxxers piss me off. If there is gonna be another whole generation that gets these diseases that could have been avoided, I know whose goddamn fault it is.