Vaccine-Hesitant

This past February, I took my adult disabled daughter to get her first vaccine in 17 years. As I pulled into a parking spot at the mass vaccination site, my hands were shaking. My heart was beating fast. This was not a decision I made lightly.

For nearly two decades, I have been one of “those parents” who refused to vaccinate their children. I was scolded and ridiculed, cursed at and insulted. I was dismissed and kicked out of doctors’ offices.

The last shot my daughter got was when she was just a toddler. Within days, she lost her speech and many developmental strides. Quite suddenly, she became non-verbal and severely autistic. I spent years looking for answers, and was given none. So I stuck to my motherly gut, which told me my daughter had some kind of allergic reaction to something in the vaccine.

I am a longtime journalist and am quite aware this theory has been debunked. But in the absence of logic, I did my own research and came to my own conclusion.

With the majority of vaccinations, there are no serious side effects. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a thing. In a normal, non-pandemic kind of year, the U.S. receives about 30,000 reports of adverse events from vaccines. Most of those are mild. But thousands are not.

I share this not to deter people from getting the vaccine. Quite the opposite. I share this because we need to acknowledge that there are very real risks associated with inoculations. Denying them, belittling them, and ignoring them does not make them go away. And it contributes to the hesitancy that is gripping our nation right now.

As I sit here and write this, cases are beginning to rise again as the delta variant spreads among the unvaccinated. I am scared — petrified — that if not enough people get vaccinated, we will end up back in lockdown.

I get it. I am not one to speak. But I do. Because if anyone understands vaccine hesitancy, it’s me.

My daughter is 19 years old. She does not speak. She does not spell. She does not add or write or function without assistance every moment of every day. Each morning I help her dress, I help brush her teeth, I help her get dressed and I help her go to the bathroom. I make her breakfast and I help her get on the special bus that takes her to her special school where she learns life skills and activities that resemble work. That is her life. She is bright, beautiful, amazing, resilient and an inspiration. Do I wish she was not disabled? Hell, yes.

I share this not for pity. I share this to make it clear that for someone like me, who believes that vaccines contributed to my daughter’s developmental disabilities, vaccinations are petrifying. But I have never lived through a pandemic before. And I pray I never will again.

I spent the past year covering vaccines as a journalist, and researching it as a graduate student. And I came to the conclusion that the benefits of getting the vaccine were greater than the risks of not getting it — for my daughter, for myself and for my community. I read the studies and the stories and weighed the pros and cons. I gave it thought. All I ask is for you to do the same.

The pandemic was a year of isolation, a year of grief. A year of doubt and despair and mental instability. A year of my daughter confused and disoriented, violent and restless, regressive and unhappy. A year like no other, that led me to the decision to get my daughter and myself vaccinated.

I am happy to report we suffered no adverse reactions from the Covid-19 vaccine. I know that will not be the case for everyone. This vaccine is not for everyone. No vaccines are for everyone. I’m still hesitant and skeptical and damn proud to be that way. I still don’t support some vaccines. I am not about to rush my daughter to the doctor and get her the dozens of vaccines she missed. But if there is a health emergency and I think she needs a vaccine, and I am convinced it is safe, she will get it.

The Covid-19 vaccine, I support. There are plenty of people who are not medically strong enough to get this vaccine. There are plenty of people who have valid reasons to say no. But for the rest of the nation, I beg you to give the risks and benefits more thought. This is too important not to.