Actually, he's just pretty much flapping his hands. What the fuck, me too.
No time, see the previous, if you think vaccines are bad then go fuck yourself, and maybe life will lighten the fuck up by next April 2 so I can say something more substantive. Bless your little hearts.
18 comments:
Hey man. I hadn't read your the previous, just did.
So, yanno, fuck you for making a zombie cry.
maybe life will lighten the fuck up by next April 2
I wouldn't count on it, though.
"your the previous"
zombie brane not write good work poorly.
16 hours...not saying vaccines are bad, but 16 hours later and then finding this...http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html
It does beg for more research about vaccination schedules and more genetically engineered medicine...not in a Jenny 'My tits are genetically engineered' McCarthy way, but in a reasonable way to make sure best practices are always followed.
Hi at you both. I'm pretty much flapping too.
Uhm...no, Colin's Daddy, the existence of the NVIC program doesn't beg for that at all. No one said there's no such thing as a vaccine injury. The incidence of vaccine injury is exceedingly low. The public health benefit of immunization far outweighs the risk of vaccine injury, and when I say "far outweighs," I'm not getting close to how completely not close this is. The vaccination schedules trope is a classic antivaccinationist line. The interactions between vaccines are studied, and there's nothing wrong with the vaccination schedule. Pediatricians who cave to that "too much, too soon" nonsense are simply defending themselves from mothers who paid too much attention to Jenny McCarthy and her ilk, and pediatricians who push it are pigfucking ignorant about the health science of the immune system.
As I'm sure you can imagine, I am dismayed and almost unbearably saddened to be having this discussion with you, of all the people on this planet. I'm not saying I won't have it, if you need to, but please know that this is the minefield to end all minefields.
Also, too: we're seeing the public health consequences of parents saying "Only *I* know what can be good for my child -- fuck ACTUAL SCIENCE! If ONE PERSON gets hurt by a vaccine, or maybe too many vaccines, that's one too many!" We're seeing outbreaks of measles, mumps, tuberculosis...diseases we thought were dead and gone (review the literature on the mortality rates of those diseases versus the mortality rates of various vaccines. Go ahead, I'll wait...
Sucker).And it's not because the diseases are suddenly more deadly, or they're nonresponsive to vaccines, or some kind antibiotic alarmist-type shit. It's because parents have suddenly decided that -- often because of Teh Internets!!!1!!! -- they are more knowledgeable and capable of making better decisions than whoever else in whatever arena of specialization (doctors and teachers come to mind, obviously, but we're definitely not the only ones). Or it's because they harbor the notion that THEIR kid is more of a Special Snowflake than every other child who has ever existed, so rules / regulations / schedules couldn't possibly apply to THEIR child. Their child should not suffer through the horrors of a mild fever or a mild rash.
And society / the media wonders why there is suddenly a generation of self-entitled little shits.
So. Anyone wonder why Landru and I are married?
Answering a rhetorical question ...
So that you can listen to the fluttering of butterfly wings together?
Minefields aside, when you your child dies with no answer, 16 hours after his two month shots, it raises questions you never expected to ask. Again, I am not anti-vaccine, but I now have a new set of questions for which I want better answefs than I am currently asked to swallow.
I still believe J McCarthy's mouth has only one real use, so pass the tissues.
when you are the stat, you question what you are fed...it is that simple...no answer begs more questions...and you know me well enough that I do not question without reason to do so...and I have a pretty damned good reason
Thanks over the course of this shitty blog for raising at least one other shitty blogger's autism awareness and especially of the issues facing the parents of afflicted kids. Your evident patience, love, and aplomb I find exemplary.
As Wisdoc says, there's a place in heaven...
Landru and Ilse, I stand and zombie-clap for your patient and reasoned responses.
As with the APGW debate, the science and odds all point in one direction, overwhelmingly; but a vanishingly small number of cases that are out of the norm are pointed to as reasons for doubting everything else. I wistfully recall when America believed in science enough to travel into space, and now we spend more time listening to the scientific knowledge of reality stars and half-bright elected nitwits from Arkansas. Zombies weep. I mean, if we could generate tears.
I am flapping my hands in your general direction, but not at all like John Cleese.
Oh. Wait.
Anti-vaxxers will help to accelerate the oncoming Zompaclypse.
Dammit. I overlooked that part of the Plan.
So, Ignore that previous. Carry on, not immunizing your kids. THAT will work out fine.
Although I will say that Bam-Bam will certainly be accommodated in the post-zombie holocaust structure. If for nothing else, in making sure I don't misspell "accommodated" on a regular basis.
You can help me out with this one. I can never remember which of the autism organizations are the good guys and which are the bad guys. (I am particularly curious today because I saw Robert Redford on my teevee this morning wearing one of those blue puzzle pieces as a lapel pin.)
First of all: Sasha, you made me laugh out loud.
Second of all, this is really long and fucking Blogger won't accept a comment this long, so I'm splitting it into two parts because I can't cut any more out of what I want to say (which is hard to believe, given how long the revised version is, and there will probably be typos, but I've decided I can't read this through any more times than I already have. Mea Culpa.).
The following is not really an experience that Andy shared, since he wasn't around when it happened. But since this original post was and is about Bam-Bam and autism, let me add this:
When Bam-Bam was 15 months old, he was developmentally ahead of where his older brother had been at the same age.
When Bam-Bam was 15 months old, he was talking, with a vocabulary of over 50 words, and was starting to put two-word sentences together ("Mama, up!").
When Bam-Bam was 15 months old, he got his MMR vaccine.
When Bam-Bam was 15 1/2 months old, over a two-week period, he stopped talking, making eye contact, or responding to his name. He would stare off into space. Last month, he played with his blocks, building towers and delighting in knocking them down. Now all he will do is line up the blocks on the floor. Last month, he was pointing to a picture of Big Bird and saying "Yellow!" This month, he just wants to flip the pages of the book, watching the pages flip-flip-flip rather than paying attention to the story.
He has gradually made some progress, but he hasn't spoken since. He won't go to college. He won't get married. Those dreams that we all have for our kids were suddenly gone and we were left with the word "Autism." That's some cold comfort.
(Continued from previous comment)
So I don't mean to be hurtful, Colin's Daddy -- I love you and yours like family, which is a large part of why I feel comfortable saying this -- but I don't want to hear about your child being a stat and we don't understand. You think I didn't spend years wondering Why? Why him? What did I do? Did I eat something when I was pregnant? Was it something in his environment? If I had done this or that or the other thing differently, would this not have happened? Did I accidentally feed him _____ and he had an allergic reaction in his brain? What can I do to make him better? CAN he get better?
So. Yes, Colin is gone. It is immensely, heart-wrenchingly tragic, and I truly mean that. I have never known the physical loss of a child and I never want to. However. When you start retirement planning for three because your child may never be able to care for himself, and you start thinking that you should have paid more attention to what his voice sounded like when he talked because now you can't remember what it sounded like, and you're shopping for baby toys for your almost 13-year-old, whose face you are having to shave, you do, in fact, know what emotional and psychological loss is. I lost my child, just not in as tangible a way as you did. My life will never be the same, either.
I know about searching for answers, and I know about having that rage and pain you just want to direct it AT something. You want this problem to be someone's or something's fault ("Who or what murdered my child?! That bastard, I'll make him PAY!"). As humans, our brains beg for causation, especially when something bad happens. (Sidebar: when sudden good things happen, do we subject them to the same level of causal scrutiny?)
Some people turn to a G-d to give them a reason, whether that be religion ("There IS a reason; trust G-d") or science ("There might be a reason, but we don't know what it is right now") or alcohol/drugs ("I don't need a reason when I'm numb") or whatever. We need reasons; acceptance of circumstances absent a reason is really, really hard. We want control; accepting not being in or having control of something we care about deeply is really, really hard.
And I'm not pretending I've done it at all well or completely. I'm just offering what I've got: sometimes, stuff just happens. For no reason. And it's no one's fault. And choosing to call a halt to the witch-hunt for answers isn't giving up and it isn't betraying your child or the memory of who he was (for Colin or Bam-Bam). That's about choosing to move forward, and understanding that moving forward isn't the same as leaving that child behind. By choosing to muddle through what comes as best you can, with your memories as your companions rather than your chains, you are honoring them, as well as making yourself available to celebrate the good things that happen, without guilt. I mean, if I ask Jack if he wants me to be happy, he nods yes. (Then again, if I ask him if he's a purple turtle, he may also say yes if he thinks there's Skittles in it for him. But I have to hold on to the idea that he's happier if I'm happier. Don't you think Colin wants / would want that for you?)
And writing this made me cry, not that that's a Herculean task these days. I mean, I also cried because I had to concentrate and think about how to spell "Herculean" when I know perfectly well how it's spelled. Brainfog is awesome.
I'm about done here. Quick hits:
-While my point remains unchanged, I'm not going to argue with my friend's grief. For those of you who don't know, ColinsDaddy is not a troll, and he is a pretty damned close real-life friend. We disagree about a thing--a thing I had no idea was there. I'm working through that in my head, and I hope he's working through it in his, too. As far as I'm concerned, the rest is off-camera.
-Sasha, I have no fucking clue any more. Some of what used to be bad is redeemed. Some, not so much.
-I articulated my feelings about this discussion in a comment over at Zombie's place, after he was kind enough to give me a shout for this post. Zombie's place is in the top section to your right.
-Ilse, don't you have a fucking blog?
-Ilse, I vehemently disagree with your categorization of science as a form of, or equivalent to, religion, for reasons I will articulate at exquisite length in the dark this evening, quite probably while you are bound and blindfolded.
-Which you will be, Ilse, because I'd really like to know who this Andy fucker is, and why he's apparently banging my wife.
Adding: The rest is off-camera, and I while I wish it hadn't walked in front of the camera, my message doesn't change, and there's no reason his should, either.
Off camera is a good thing. I thank Ilse and Landru for the commentary and support, and I do not think that we disagree as much as my initial comments may indicate. I just have new questions that lead me down a multitude of paths and this path sparked an urge to say something. It is that simple.
As for being a troll, I can accept people thinking of me as such, and quite frankly part of the reason we are all friends is that I really do not give a flying fuck about people thinking such based on a few blog comments. People read too much into shit anyway...it is human nature.
TO get back to the point of vaccines however, I am not saying that they were the cause. Hell, my subsequent child is going through the vaccine regimen and doing quite well. All I wonder is that given all the circumstances with Colin's birth, was their some correlation, or exasperation of an undiagnosed pre-existing condition, or whatever where at least there would be one more piece of the puzzle that may lead to an eventual answer. Who the fuck knows? Surely not me, but as of right now, not medical science either since his death is a diagnosis of exclusion.
I think you both know me well enough that I am stubborn enough to keep searching, ornery enough to say what the hell is on my mind, strong enough to take criticism for what it is, and humble enough to admit when I am wrong. For now, the medical shoulder shrug just has me questioning what is right and what is wrong...and if anyone faults me for that, well fuck 'em. I will keep looking and asking and trying to find all those pieces to the puzzle.
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