I am old enough to remember the days before vaccines. I remember lining up in my Catholic school cafeteria after church one Sunday to get the “ sugar cube” for polio. I was probably around 6 or 7. I also clearly remember a girl in the neighborhood who wore a leg brace and walked with a limp from polio. She was about my age. My husband remembers a boy who used crutches as a result of polio. Many years later, I had a colleague who was in excruciating pain from post polio syndrome and required accommodations at work, some 40 years later. I don’t remember having measles , but because of my age, the assumption is that I did. I certainly hope so, since it is rearing its’ head again and I am at risk, having recently competed cancer treatments. I clearly remember the unbearable itch from chicken pox , 62 years later, and have scars to prove it. I was told that I had mumps, but was too young to recall. I do remember how miserable my brother was when he had it. My own sons were born too soon for the chicken pox vaccine, and one had a miserable case at age 12, with pox even in his eyes. My family was lucky to avoid serious complications, but others were not. I am so glad that my grandchildren live in an age where they don’t have to experience these diseases. At least I hope they don’t, but the decline in vaccination rates has me concerned that if here immunity wanes, the youngest of them will be at risk.
