Just a small jab, but we are so grateful for this vaccine!
For this tale of viruses and vaccines I will bring you back to December of 2019. Just a few weeks before a new, virulent lung disease would be reported in Wuhan, China, I went through an experience that forever changed the way I thought about viruses. As a working mother, I had been through so many of the bugs that kids pick up at daycare and preschool: RSV, Strep, Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease, and flu. I knew these could be dangerous, but it was something I didn’t really understand. It is a little like the Grand Canyon. You know it is big, but you cannot begin to fathom its scale until you stand at its edge. And even then, your understanding of its size will change if you hike down the rim and spend days trying to walk its length.
Just like understanding the Grand Canyon, my entire conception of the dangers of a virus changed when my 5-year-old son developed rare and severe complications from pneumonia, triggered by nothing more than the flu. I never would have expected for him to be in the ICU fighting for his life because of a commonplace virus. It was the first time in my life that I realized that my conceptualization of sickness was based on a tidy formula that I had created from my own experience. I thought that children came down with an illness, got a little worse, and then would come a peak from which they would inevitably get better. How could I understand the vast scale of possibilities? I had never stood at the edge, seeing for myself how mightily a virus could attack until that December, when my own child’s life hung in the balance.
And who would have ever imagined back then that viruses and pneumonia would dominate our lives for the next two years? Who could have thought that hospitals would be overwhelmed with so many cases like these? We have spent months washing our hands, masking up, and even quarantined in our homes. We have felt, by turns, scared and frustrated and even helpless.
When we were going through that terrible experience, I realized that what tipped the scales in his favor was the power of something else that feels commonplace today: a vaccine. I would like to share more about our experience and why I have made the decision to vaccinate my children. Covid-19 is rarely dangerous in children. But then, flu is rarely dangerous, either. I don’t have any intention of scaring folks or telling them what they should do with their own kids. I have no medical training and claim no expertise. In contrast, one reason I am sharing is because I find a lot of medical information confusing. Sometimes, we just need to hear one regular person sharing their experience to help us make a choice.
But the real reason I feel compelled is even more personal. In my darkest hours in the Pediatric ICU, as I bargained with God to let my son live, I promised that I would share our story to help others. I still feel compelled to deliver on that promise today.
Just Another Preschool Bug
Let’s rewind to Friday, December 14, 2019. We were getting ready for the Christmas holidays, with all the excitement and parties with the upcoming last week of school. Our son Perry, who had just turned five years old, was feeling a little sick and had a bit of a fever. I didn’t even pull out the thermometer, but I could tell doing the classic mom test of holding my hand to his neck and his forehead. I kept him home from preschool and pulled out the Children’s Tylenol. He responded well and his fever went down, and I debated sending him back to school the next day. I only kept him home because a pediatrician had given me the rule of thumb that you shouldn’t send a kid to school unless they have no fever without the help of medicine for 24 hours. He didn’t quite pass that test.
Several days went by like this: he would develop a bit of a fever and coughing at night, respond well to medicine, and be up and active during the day. Kids in preschool are always coming home with some sort of sickness, and I thought it was a cold. Each day my husband and I discussed whether or not to keep him at home or send him to school, but that low fever kept coming back. I didn’t want to risk getting other kids sick.
On one of his missed school days. We were trying out his ugly sweater and crazy hat so he was ready for the next week.
The morning of Tuesday the 17th came, and he was now missing his third day of school in a row. He was running around full of energy, and I packed him off to a work meeting with me. I felt like a foolish, overly protective mom for keeping him home and was certain that he had turned the corner on whatever illness had been bothering him. In truth, I was a little relieved that he seemed to be over it, just in time for the Christmas festivities. But that afternoon something changed, and the change was sudden. He developed a cough that was persistent. My children have asthma, and I have learned over the years that there is a language to coughs. Some coughs are “productive,” and others are tight or barky or otherwise worrisome. In fact, if you are in a public space and you hear a kid give a certain cough you might look up and meet eyes with a nurse in the room because you both know that kid needs a little help. Perry had one of those bad coughs. I knew he needed to see a doctor when his inhaler didn’t really help. I called his pediatrician’s office, and they fit us in with an appointment just before they closed.
It’s funny how well I remember that appointment. By then, I suspected that whatever sickness it was might be the flu. There was a little box of masks at the reception, with a sign asking that folks with flu to wear one. Masks are so common now, but it surprised the receptionist when I asked for one, and I told her and later the pediatrician that he might have the flu. The pediatrician listened to him breathe with her stethoscope and we agreed he should start taking a 5-day course of prednisone, an oral steroid that helps reduce the inflammation in the lungs that triggers coughing and makes it harder to breathe. She gave him the first dose and called in the prescription so I could pick up the remaining doses in the morning. We would continue to give him albuterol—the medicine in inhalers dilates the bronchioles in the lungs, making it easier to breathe—and keep monitoring him. Nothing was too alarming, and nobody was terribly concerned. She could hear him moving oxygen well, even if he had a bit of wheeze. His fever was well controlled by medicine. We had certainly handled a lot worse situations.
A Rough Night
But that night did not go well. If you had had a kid on prednisone before, you know that it can make them irritable and hyperactive and ravenously hungry. When kids are really sick, steroids don’t have much impact. Perry was not very interested in eating or drinking, and for an active kid he was doing a lot of lying around. He went to bed but was restless and having a hard time catching his breath between coughs. He and I ended up on the couch together, me holding him up against my body so he could sleep sitting up – it made it easier for him than when he was lying flat. I had the nebulizer, a small machine that creates a medicated mist of albuterol, next to me. Typically, you don’t want to give treatments at home more than every 4 hours, but I found that I was using it every couple of hours. I was feeling a little worried by then that this sickness might land us in the hospital. Almost always prednisone knocks out whatever problems are dogging a sick kid. I kept thinking that as soon as the pharmacy opened I would run grab his prescription so I could give him his next dose as soon as possible. I felt sure that the full second-day dose would make a big difference.
The second dose did help, but not as much as it should have. As the morning wore on, he still was lying listlessly and would not eat and only sip at water, although he was talking to us and watching videos on his tablet. His fever was no longer being controlled by Tylenol, and I pulled out the thermometer so I could have an accurate understanding of exactly what we were dealing with. 102.1 – it wasn’t high, but it was worrisome given his breathing problems. Then we couldn’t space out his nebulizer treatments because his cough and wheeze were not responding to the medicine. My husband has dealt with severe asthma his entire life, and he knows respiratory illness in a personal way that gives him an intuitive understanding. We agreed that if we did not see improvement in an hour, it would be a trip to the ER. “It might be pneumonia,” he said. I called the pediatrician’s office, and they agreed with the plan. At this point, it was beyond their level of care.
Perry loves dogs, and once he started to get sicker his puppy never left his side
Even before the allotted time passed, I was packing Perry up for our trip to the local ER, about half an hour away. My husband, Geoff, planned to meet us up there with a bag, knowing we would likely be spending a night in the hospital. I gave Perry one last nebulizer treatment before we left and put an inhaler next to me in the driver seat. I had my cell phone ready as well in case I needed to call paramedics.
By the time we were on the interstate, I could see him retracting in the rearview mirror. This is when children are working so hard to breathe that you can see their skin pull in, particularly around their neck. Perry was not able to maintain a conversation with me, because he was very focused on breathing. I drove far faster than usual, doing my best to remain calm and safe. I rehearsed in my head, over and again, what I would tell the triage desk at the ER. The clearer the information, the faster and better the treatment. I said it to myself in my mind: difficulty breathing, second day of prednisone, fever of 102 with Tylenol, suspected pneumonia, last albuterol treatment with a nebulizer 30 minutes ago. I said it one more time to myself as the valet took our car and I carried Perry out of the car, by now running into the ER.
At the ER
To this day I feel overwhelming gratitude for the Baptist Health Corbin Hospital Emergency Room. I had never been in a situation before where the ER staff needed to react quickly, and I am grateful to say that in our time of need they delivered. Those at the reception desk took in the information I blurted out, saw his breathing struggles, and were measuring the amount of oxygen in his blood within seconds. For healthy folks, oxygen saturation should be above 95%. Anything below 90 is concerning, but below 85 is bad. I think we all held our breaths as we waited for the reading, and it was 81. Sometimes it takes a while for the reading to really take, and it can go up or down. But this time, it was at 81, then 82, then back to 81. I had been in the hospital with my older child, but I had never seen a reading that low with a recent nebulizer treatment and two days of prednison. They moved us immediately to a room, where they used a nasal cannula—a little plastic tube with prongs that go into the nostrils—to gave him extra oxygen. They also started up more treatments with a nebulizer.
At the ER of Baptist Corbin Hospital
An ER doctor came and saw us right away. After she did her initial exam she told us she was transferring us to UK Children’s Hospital so he could receive more specialized care, and in the meantime would do all the test they could so that they would have good information in Lexington. They put in an IV and began to give him higher doses of steroids. They drew his blood and tested him for flu, RSV, and strep. She listened to him breathe and ordered a chest x-ray that confirmed pneumonia. We learned he was positive for flu Type A, the worse and more virulent strain. They began to administer IV Tamiflu and antibiotics. I had been communicating back and forth with my husband, Geoff, as he packed up what we would need for at least one overnight, and maybe more, in the hospital.
Perry was connected to a machine that gave us a constant read of that oxygen level. I have been through some ER trips, and I could tell this time was different from following his oxygen level. Usually, if oral prednisone can’t knock out the inflammation that makes breathing so difficult, IV steroids in the ER can. I had seen my older child receive a nasal canula that gave some additional oxygen while those steroids kicked in. But this time, the supplemental oxygen and steroids were not quite moving the needle. I kept watching as the supplemental oxygen got dialed up from 1 liter to 2, then 3 just to keep him in the 90 range. But when Geoff arrived with the overnight bag, we all had a good conversation. Perry’s mood was okay, although all that work to breathe left him tired and far less talkative than his usual self. I tried to reason with myself that it really could not be that bad. It would just be a night or so in the hospital and we would be home.
The ER doctor was calm and upbeat, but she explained that she was scheduling the helicopter to take us to UK Children’s Hospital, rather than waiting the hour plus it would take in an ambulance. This was not what I wanted to hear – it frightened me to think he might need that kind of emergency transport. She explained that with his low oxygen levels, things could change quickly, and we needed to be cautious. But it was a very windy day, and ultimately the weather cancelled the helicopter. Instead, we waited for the pediatric ambulance that would be able to give him appropriate treatment, if needed, during the drive.
The pediatric ambulance team was amazing. They let Perry pick out a movie to watch on the ride up, and I got into the front with the driver. I kept looking and asking for clues: did the team seem nervous? Did the ambulance driver exhibit any extra urgency? Perry slept most of the way, and by now his oxygen was dialed up to 5.
Darkness was falling as Perry was rolled off the ambulance and into a room in the Emergency Department of UK Children’s Hospital on a stretcher. They transferred his oxygen to the machine in the room and we said goodbye. Perry was given additional nebulizer treatments and another chest x-ray. And still his oxygen kept getting dialed up. The oxygen was dialed to 7 when I heard the official news that he was being admitted to the hospital, although we were to wait in the ED until they could get an open room. Folks came in periodically to check on us, but mostly in response to the machines that monitored him. And that oxygen was now dialed up to 9.
Waiting for a hospital room in the ED of UK Children’s Hospital. Here you can see both his nasal cannula and the nebulizer treatment.
It was after midnight when he was moved to his hospital room. Along with his oxygen, they connected him to a continuous nebulizer. Instead of getting periodic treatments, he was now getting a constant stream of medicines to help keep his lungs open. By now, we were completely beyond the level of care I had previously witnessed in my days of parenting children with asthma. The oxygen in a hospital room goes up to 10, and he was now maxed out – I had never seen the dial creep up beyond a few liters, let away dialed all the way to the top. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a continuous nebulizer. Even the way they rolled in a machine that took an immediate chest x-ray was new to me. But what really got me was that all that intervention wasn’t having the impact I would expect. The amount of oxygen in Perry’s blood was still too low, hovering around 90.
Being in a hospital is always scary, and especially with your child. I found it very worrisome that he needed so much help. But I wasn’t alarmed yet. We were in a nice pediatric hospital. I hated that Perry was sick, but I had complete confidence that the hospital staff would be able to treat him. I kept telling myself that if it were really bad they would put him in ICU. We were still just regular hospital patients, and it was probably just good fortune that I had not experienced these types of intervention. I thought the medicine just needed time to work. After all, we were dealing with pneumonia.
The Nightmare Begins
We had just gotten settled in the room when a hospital staff member reappeared. Perry was awake from the move, and I was focused on him. But there was something about the way that she was looking at the equipment and fussing with the dials that caught my attention. Then she looked down at Perry and asked me if I thought his coloring looked right. His already fair complexion looked nearly colorless in the night lights of the hospital room as I smoothed his hair and tried to get him to sleep. And then Perry’s eyes suddenly opened wide. He let out what could have been a scream or a gasp, but his mouth and nose were covered by nebulizer equipment and oxygen. His whole body convulsed.
The medical equipment might have silenced Perry’s cry, but it screamed out for him. A cacophony of urgent beeps filled the room. All day long my eyes had been following the line charting his oxygen, and I saw it plummet down, past 80, past 70, and into the 60’s. Perry’s eyes closed back and his lips turned blue. The room filled suddenly with people. They moved in decisively, and I lay on the foot of his bed, trying to stay out of the way as they administered to him, the cadence of their battle tallied by beeps. I couldn’t quite see the reading on the machine anymore through the people, and I just kept trying to talk to Perry, to get him to look at me, holding his hands. His eyes opened briefly, unfocused. I just wanted to reassure him and let him know I was there, even as I was panicking about every second that elapsed without sufficient oxygen. I started to sing him his favorite bedtime song, but it occurred to me that I did not want to sing him to sleep. I had to choke back the vomit rising in my mouth.
In the Pediatric ICU. Do you see that small arm?
As soon he was stabilized, the attending called out that we were moving to ICU. The amorphous mass of hospital bed, equipment, and staff moved quickly down the hall with me following along. One of those staff explained to me that there was much better equipment in the ICU. He had topped out the hospital room with 10 liters of oxygen, but the machines there went up to 60. She said that the ICU was full, or they would have moved him sooner.
I felt profound confusion and denial. I had held onto this sliver of hope that he was not that sick because we had not been in ICU, and now I was learning that he already belonged there. Worse, they moved another kid out to make room for him. The evidence was clear before me, but my brain could not make out that he was sick enough to force another child out of ICU, even if I had just watched his oxygen crash.
“Is it over?” I asked this nurse, who politely masked her surprise at my question. It was in that moment that I realized my understanding of sickness had been incredibly narrow. Like the storyline to a historical fiction novel, I thought fevers broke, and that maybe this one episode signaled a definitive crescendo that would lead now to the healthy resolution. I thought this one terrible drop might be the end, the turning point.
But this was not the case.
Instead, we entered the world of ICU. There he was hooked up to a wider array of machinery and monitors, with wires connected to his chest. And even with all of this support, his oxygen was still hovering around 90. He simply lay in his bed, in a world unkown to me, as noisy machines forced oxygen into his body. He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, better.
The Attending of the Pediatric ICU came and talked to me at 4am. She explained that Perry was experiencing rare and severe complications from pneumonia. His lungs had been so inflamed that one had collapsed violently, the way they typically do after a trauma like a car accident. She showed me the x-ray they had taken right when they brought him into ICU, taken less than half an hour from the x-ray when he was brought to the hospital room. Even with my inexperience, I could see how his lung dropped from its rightful position, and the bright spots of oxygen splayed across his chest and neck and arm in the second x-ray. She explained pneumomediastinum, and subcutaneous emphysema. The skin of his chest and neck were crinkly from all the oxygen that had escaped beneath.
I asked her if he was going to be okay. She told me he was stable and in the best possible place, but he had a big fight ahead of him. His body had to be able to reabsorb all that oxygen and lost gasses. And, from this weakened position it had to fight off the pneumonia and flu. “We are not out of the woods,” she said.
I have had some low moments in hospitals. I was in a hospital when my mother was released home to die after a last-chance chemotherapy caused her organs to shut down. Then, less than 2 months after her death, I was alone in an ER bathroom at the Pineville Hospital when I delivered the tiniest baby, 16 weeks old and completely still. I was certain at that moment that my life had hit its lowest point. I had never needed my mother more, had never felt a grief so total and so piercing. But nobody can tell you the complete physical, spiritual, and emotional trauma of watching your bright and active 5-year-old, uncertain if he is going to live. It was beyond anything, totally unworldly and out-of-body. It was a fear beyond expression.
I thought that I had understood severe illness. I had seen the inexorable tide that came with my mother’s cancer, weakening her until her final days of hospice care at home. I sponged her lips with water and gave her liquid morphine to ease the pain. But never had I seen the tremendous power of a virus – never imagined how clearly the battle is drawn between the force of illness and the capacity of a child’s body in the face of such an attack. I had never sat in agony, wondering if a child who was happily playing a few days earlier would every get up from his hospital bed. If he had a future beyond this room.
But I was also in shock. This severe reaction to the flu was a complete surprise. Sure, this little guy had a few struggles with wheezing here and there when he got an upper respiratory infection. But he had always been so resilient to illness, popping right back up and recovering quickly. The only time he had been in a hospital was for stitches. He is a total boy’s boy who loved to run and jump and never lets anything slow him down. I could not believe that was my child there, fighting for his life. He should have been with his preschool class that day, eating cupcakes at the Christmas party. Instead, his small body was in a hospital bed connected to endless wires and tubes that overshadowed him and machines that forced his breath.
From the moment we arrived in the ICU the staff set up the bed so that I could lie beside of him. For hours and hours I just lay there, trying to soak up every piece of him I could. I thought about how excited he had been when he turned five earlier that month, waking up just certain that he was taller and smarter than he had been the day before when he was only four. I thought about the sweet way he told me he loved me every night, saying “you’re the best Mommy.” I watched his throat as he retracted with each breath, his entire body working to breath, and I prayed fervent prayers. Every time his oxygen dipped below 90, the machine let out a warning, and I braced myself as if someone were about to hit me. Would his oxygen crash again? And if it did now, with all this support, would he ever recover?
He had shown no signs of consciousness since we arrived in the ICU. I could clearly see his vital signs on monitors surrounding his bed, but I had no idea if he was sleeping or if it was something far worse. And then, after those countless hours of worry, he reached his hand over to me. Over time his oxygen saturation went up to 94, then 97, then 99. And then all the way up to 100 where it held. And then in one blessed moment he roused and asked for water. I felt the pure adrenaline joy of the feeling that he was going to make it, and that he was not irreversibly damaged by his illness. I am not sure if I have ever felt so physically relieved and happy in my whole life.
Eating chocolate and vanilla ice cream
As Perry worked on recovering, I bore witness to the power of a vaccine. No longer did he have a fever, and his body was not producing more mucus. The flu and pneumonia were quieted. It was hard to attribute the quick turnaround to Tamiflu since he started it so late in the course of the illness. Instead, it only made sense that it was the vaccine that lessened the severity and duration of his illness. He spent another night in the ICU on a high-flow nasal cannula, but his body was able to focus on his collapsed lung instead of struggling to heal through sickness. The battle with the virus was over. When morning came, he managed to sit up and eat ice cream in bed. Finally we saw the reaction to all those steroids: he grumpily asked for chocolate and vanilla ice cream, and we were all happy to oblige. He hadn’t eaten food in nearly a week! Over the course of the day he was weaned from the high-flow cannula and released from ICU back to a regular hospital room.
Walking out of the ICU!
I used to think supplemental oxygen was a bad sign, and now I was so grateful that it was all he needed as he walked out of the ICU to his regular hospital room in his hospital socks, with a nurse wheeling the oxygen tank behind. What a change from all those trips on stretchers! His dad and brother got to come and visit and hang out with him in his new room.
A hospital social worker visited the room and told me that they had a special program for families in the hospital at Christmastime, if I would just follow her. She led me to a cafeteria filled top to bottom with toys and stocking stuffers and books. I broke down sobbing when they told me to pick out several items for both of our children and they would wrap them up. I was at once so touched and felt so undeserving. What could compare to the gift we had been given? I had seen so many other families in the Pediatric ICU, and I can still feel today the raw sorrow of what I witnessed. You do not have to be there long to understand that not all children get to go home.
And we were so fortunate. Perry was released from the hospital in time for us to have Christmas at home, under strict orders that we quarantine from everyone and wear masks in public. It was such a strange idea back then to quarantine and mask, but the doctors explained that even a cold could be very dangerous before his lung fully healed. I did not mind the restrictions one bit – when we stepped out of that hospital, I felt like my heart could burst. It was a level of freedom beyond anything I had felt in my life.
Miracles & Science
I am a person of faith, and I am also an analytic person who values science and technology. I think it’s important to acknowledge that these two things can and do go together. To me, one of the most amazing ways that humans are made in God’s image is that we, as humans, can create. I believe God works through us and with us as we make art and music, and also as we make advancements in science, technology, and medicine. I am grateful to God for the healing of my child but that does not change how grateful I am to all the practitioners who worked work so tirelessly and gave us such great care. They are children of God who have a great and difficult calling.
A very happy moment was when he was reunited with his brother in his hospital room!
I also believe it is important to acknowledge that we are far beyond the Garden of Eden, in a world of man-made complexities that often require man-made solutions. As much as I believe in the power of prayer, I also believe my son would have died without the incredible advancements in medical technology, including a vaccine. We received so many prayers while we were in the hospital, and they truly got me through my darkest hour. But, oh, how I was humbled when we walked away, knowing so many children we left behind in the hospital whose prayers were still not answered.
Covid has deepened by faith. Imagine going into 2020 worried that even a cold could land your child in the hospital—or worse—and then watching a global pandemic unfold that causes severe complications from pneumonia. I certainly said my share of prayers during the pandemic, and we did our best to carefully follow guidelines and precautions. But I believe in analysis over fear. By the time vaccines were rolling around, I knew that the risks associated with childhood Covid were low, even though the virus was obviously terribly deadly for adults. Even with pre-existing conditions and underlying risk factors, I did not immediately jump on the vaccine bandwagon for my children. After all, it was a new kind of vaccine, with a new delivery mechanism. And there was no way to tell the long-term effects. To me, the trade-offs were unclear for children.
Getting to go home!
I do not have a medical background, but I do have a research background. I spent 7 years of my life earning a research-focused PhD, and then an additional 2 years as a postdoctoral fellow and faculty member. During that time, I took many classes on research methods and read countless research reports. I conducted my own research (I was trying to better understand how children living in poverty in rural places best learn to read) and that is how I know the strict programs that are in place to protect anyone who participates in research. Because there have been terrible atrocities committed in the name of science (particularly by Nazi scientists), every institution that conducts research with people must follow strict protocols. Even asking simple survey questions could take months in a process with a board of experts reviewing plans and ensuring that there could be no unexpected harmful impacts. I understood that the process of identifying medical treatments could be sped up by many years, just by skipping the normal procedures that are required to minimize harm to research participants. If it takes months to get approval to ask survey questions about a child’s reading, imagine how long it takes to ensure there is no harm from medical research!
As I began to dig into how the vaccine was developed, I was able to access the original research publications written by the scientists who conducted the work. Unfortunately, very few people have access to the science that is conducted in our country, even when it is paid for by public dollars. This is because the companies that publish scientific journals have incredibly high paywalls that make the original research reports almost inaccessible to anyone but people who work for universities and research firms. As I read these reports, I began to see how mRNA vaccines had been under development for decades against slightly different versions of the Coronavirus than Covid-19. It made good sense that a vaccine could be developed quickly, given that scientists have been working on this frontier of vaccine technology since the 1990’s, with huge advancements in the past decade.
So far, Covid-19 has not been as harmful to children as it has been to adults, and particularly older adults. But viruses can mutate quickly and the Delta variant is already worse for children. Who is to say that a newer version might be more dangerous again? In the end, I was satisfied with what I learned about the development of the Covid-19 vaccine. We made a family decision that the vaccine was the path of less danger for both ourselves and our children.
Home in time for Christmas!
I have watched other families make this same decision. There is one family I think of often, because the father has both an MD and a PhD from Harvard Medical School and is a practicing oncologist and medical researcher. Many years ago, he had a child in daycare with my oldest son, and I had never encountered anyone more cautious about their baby. He and his wife made the daycare put formula in glass bottles and brought in their own special nap mats and crib mattresses and diapers because the parents were so worried about their child being exposed to harmful chemicals through their skin. You can bet that the blueberries in the lunch were organic, and yogurt was a special treat because it was sugary. Guess where they landed on the vaccine debate? His children are now fully vaccinated, and he understands mRNA at a level I could never reach. The people I know with the most training in medicine, science, and public health are all getting their children vaccinated.
The Edge of the Canyon
I feel that we are all standing at the edge of the canyon now, all trying to understand something that is at a scale beyond our knowing. All I can do is hold out my hands, offering my own small truth. My truth is that viruses are a terrible enemy that I had completely underestimated. Their strength and power were far beyond my grasp until I saw it with my own eyes. My own healthy, vibrant child was nearly drug under—forever—by their force.
When I was with him in the hospital I replayed again and again in my mind when and how he got a flu shot. I just knew that I would never have forgiven myself if he hadn’t had one. And I thought to myself that if we made it out, it would be my obligation to share this testimony.
I pray that you and your family are never in a situation like this one, and to be honest the odds are in your favor. But even if you escape an experience like this one, there are so many others out there who already walk the balance of life and death and who depend on us not to get the illness and pass it on. Children with cancer. The elderly. Our friends we visit at church and the family that we hug over the holidays.
If this story nudges even one person to consider the vaccine with new eyes, I feel that I have met my obligation. At the same time, I am someone who believes that our job on Earth is to be as loving as we can. If you choose to not get the Covid vaccine for yourself or your children, I won’t hate you or think less of you. If you have made up your mind that the Covid vaccines will wreck your immune system, this story may not be for you. This story is for the momma who feels uncertain about whether a vaccine is the right choice. This story is for the family who has just been so busy it has been hard to fit in. To those people I would say, our world has grown and changed so fast. We buy groceries shipped in from all parts of the world, and we touch restaurant tables and gymnasium bleachers that have already seen so many people. To me, the vaccine is a lot like putting on a seat belt or buckling a child into a car seat. We get into cars every day and hope they are not needed. But we are prepared for the worst-case scenario, knowing we are far more likely to walk away with that protection. And just like I would never drive without a safety belt, I will make sure my children get their vaccines.
Less than 2 years later, getting his Covid-19 vaccine
Now that you know a little bit of what it is like to have a critically ill child, I hope you can make your choice with a heart that feels some peace. Covid has brought so many of us to the brink of this canyon. It was once rare to see someone in the hospital with pneumonia that kept getting worse. With Covid, it has become so common that I am certain every single person reading this knows someone who went through a hospitalization or died in this manner. Someone who seemed fine at home for a week or so, then took a turn for the worse. Someone who went to the hospital but kept needing more intensive and more invasive treatments. Someone for whom the treatments did not work. My heart aches for families who had to make tough choices, putting their loved ones on ventilators and them taking them off because death became the better choice. I cannot imagine the pain of saying goodbye through a screen, of being separated when someone you love is ill.
To me, it is a miracle of both God and science that we have some protection against these kinds of scenarios. Yes, the Covid vaccine is imperfect – so is the flu vaccine. But for us, it was enough. I am so grateful for the health and life of my sweet little boy, and I am so grateful that we have the armor of the vaccine should we have to go back to battle.
Get to Know Us
Sky and Geoff Marietta live in Appalachian Kentucky and are passionate about promoting rural America. They are the authors of Rural Education in America: What Works for Our Students, Teachers, and Communities published by Harvard Education Publishing Group.
