Mary Ann
When I was a little girl, I was not allowed to go to the community pool in the summer or participate in other activities where large groups gathered. My mother was scared that I would contract Polio. The fear was a nightmare at the time for our parents – death and withered limbs loomed large for them. Then Salk and later Sabin developed vaccines that eventually eradicated polio from the United States and for the most part, the world.
I can remember going to the local high school gym for a shot. The lines were long and both adults and children got the shots. For most parents, they could at last exhale. A few years later, we lined up again for a sugar cube that Sabin developed – so much better than a needle.
Time passed and hardly anyone spoke of polio again. We grew up and had children. Our children and later grandchildren got a whole host of vaccinations. They didn’t have to endure measles, mumps, or rubella and on and on. I sat in a dark room when I had measles to protect my eyes – it may have been a wives’ tales, but my mother was not taking any chances. There was a girl in my hometown who lost her hearing at the age of two from measles. There was danger.
Then we became senior citizens and suddenly we have a whole new set of shots, our baby shots. There is the annual Flu and Covid shots, RSV, Shingles, Pneumonia, Hep A Hep B, and you still need Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis) every ten years. If you travel, you may need Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Cholera, and so on. On a trip to Africa, I had to get another Polio shot – they had had a recent outbreak. At times, you feel like a human pin cushion.
However, regardless of how uncomfortable the vaccinations may be, the alternative of getting the disease and possibly dying from it, is far worse. With each shot, I can see my mother smiling at me for protecting myself with the new baby shots, just as she once protected me from polio. I am thankful for these life-saving shots. They can make all the difference in my old age.
Silver Sage Sisters 