My Uncle Frank passed away on August 24. He was a great man and a wonderful artist. He had worked at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and helped to inspire an appreciation of art AND of history in me and in others. He’ll be missed by all of us.
Uncle Frank was my mom’s brother, and he had polio as a child. He spent a year in the hospital when he was eleven years old. Then when he was about seventeen, he spent another year in the hospital.
From the age of eleven, Uncle Frank’s life was one of constant pain. His back became misshapen, and he had to endure a series of amputations to his foot and leg, all traced back to polio. This on top of spending 2 years of his life in the hospital, which I can’t even imagine.
Having known someone like this all my life, I wanted to share these things with everyone who has struggled over the “vaccine” issue.
I don’t pretend to know if there’s a connection between vaccines and autism. I can’t offer advice to anyone about it.
But I can’t even begin to imagine how miserable life would be if I didn’t get Lucas vaccinated, if he was still diagnosed with autism, and if he got polio…
How could he deal with an extended stay in the hospital?
- He wouldn’t understand what was happening, and there would be no way to explain it to him.
- He would probably need to be strapped to the bed or medicated ALL THE TIME.
- He’d fight all hospitals and doctors for the rest of his life!
What if, like Uncle Frank, he had to spend ANOTHER year of his life in the hospital?
- See above, only this time he’d be bigger, stronger, more angry, more scared, and would fight harder to keep from going back.
He’d be in constant physical pain every day.
He’d either cause massive damage to himself as he banged his head, etc., in attempts to stop the pain, or would have to be medicated continuously to help ease the pain so that he WOULDN’T hurt himself.
What if he had to have ANYTHING amputated?
- He’d have to endure yet another hospital stay, and more pain.
- Then he’d need physical therapy to learn how to compensate for the amputated limb.
- There would be MORE frustration as he dealt with things like “phantom sensations” (for example, nerve endings at the site of the amputation itching, even while there was nothing there to scratch).
I have no doubt that both he and I would lose our minds in a situation like that.
Polio is highly contagious; it can actually be caught from an infected person’s sneeze or cough. And right now, there are about 12 million people in the U.S. who didn’t have the required medical checkups when they entered the country, because they didn’t come through correct channels. We don’t know if any of them are carriers of polio or other diseases.
What would happen if I chose not to have my kids vaccinated, Lucas had autism anyway, and either of them caught polio?
I’d never forgive myself.
Tags: A Mom's Thoughts by Lauren
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