I am 74 years old and I will never forget when one of neighbor's little 2 year got the whooping cough. I was about 6 or 7, so it was 1946 or 47.. The little girl, Loretta, was gasping for air and making the classic whopping noise. Her mother could drive my mother could not. So another neighbor watched all the little kids and my mother held Loretta and the neighbor drove to hospital with them in the car. Loretta survived. As a matter of fact, I had lunch with her a few months back. I remember when the whooping cough vaccine became available, around that same time, we were lined up at school in a long hallway and nurses gave us shots. How, oh, how. can people not get their children vaccinated?

If you think you don't need a booster, ask yourself these questions:

Can you afford to be sick and out of work for a whole month?

How would you feel about getting no sleep from coughing all day and night?

Would you enjoy coughing so hard that you throw up everything you eat or drink?

How would you like sleeping with a bucket by your bed because you wake up coughing and do not have time to get to the bathroom to throw up?


I got whooping cough at age 11 and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Who was talking about all her kids being sick with chicken pox.

I mentioned that there was a vaccine for that and she remarked she was skeptical of vaccines and that it made the kids "stronger" to have to go thru some stuff.

I can remember being sick as a dog from chicken pox, missed like 2 weeks of school and how much I missed playing with my friends who were well, so it thought that was totally irresponsible, to have a way to prevent suffering in your kids and not do it.

As someone dealing with yet another outbreak of recurring shingles, I can honestly say I don't feel stronger for having had chicken pox.

Bleh!