To Vaccinate...Or Not to Vaccinate?

Gracie had her 5 year old well child visit with her pediatrician yesterday.  She is a healthy girl and was sooooo cooperative!!!!  The two questions on our mind:

• A referral to see the Speech Pathologist.  She wanted to see us back before the school year started, but we can't just call and make an appointment.  Each time there needs to be a referral from pediatrics.  So we'll be meeting with her on October 30th.
• Vaccinations:  Gracie is currently up-to-date and compliant with her vaccinations.  I'm very pro-vaccination, however prior to age 6 we need to have quite a few vaccinations take place.  One of them being the Dtap vaccination....part of this vaccination is for pertussis (whooping cough).  There is currently a large number of cases of whooping cough in our community and surrounding communities.  Our hesitation for having her vaccinated goes back to her last Dtap vaccination at age 15 months old.  We had just found out that Gracie had epilepsy, we had just started her on anti-epileptic meds, seizures were not well controlled at that point and she had her 15 month vaccinations, and then came the on-set of INFANTILE SPASMS...an intractable seizure disorder that changed our world.  3 months later we finally beat the I.S. monster using large doses of steroids and a non-FDA approved medication that we had to have sent in from Canada.  Gracie's weight ballooned, she became constantly irritable, and she experienced many milestone delays...you don't learn very easily when your having 60+ seizures a day.  Did the vaccination cause the seizure disorder???  Gracie was probably pre-disposed to I.S., but it is believed the vaccination set the I.S. in motion.  So what happens if we vaccinate her with this again???  We've had conversations with Gracie's neurologist who we trust immensely.  She feels that she would much rather treat the seizures than possible brain bleeds that could be the result of having whooping cough.  That certainly makes sense, but I'm not quite ready to go that route yet.  So I asked if we could have a consultation with the Department Chair for Pediatrics, who also specializes in Infectious Disease and is known as the resident expert regarding vaccinations.  Our pediatrician supported our request 100% and we are scheduled for an appointment in early December.  We would appreciate any prayers for guidance.

It was a cool evening last night and Gracie was having a blast playing outside on her playset and with her pretend lawn mower...can you really cut grass while mowing the deck?  Hmmmm.  This cool weather agrees with her.  She was so happy outside.  I just love to see it.

School and daycare continue to go great for Gracie this year.  She is really at a great age and I'm so incredibly amazed at how awesome her daycare friends are with her.  Just this morning we were surrounded by a group of young girls (3 & 4) that were giving her little letters and were chatting up a storm.  I seriously considered skipping work and playing with all of the sweet children at daycare.  I wonder if my boss would have noticed I was missing?  Mitch - Can I stay at daycare and play one of these days?  :)

Have a great weekend!

Love,
Lisa, Jeff, and Gracie Good Girl