Saturday, October 20, 2012

Benjamins Vaccine Injury Story

Since October is Vaccine Injury Awareness Month I wanted to share our story. This isn't a big Anti Vaccine Post its just our story and a plea to educate before you vaccinate.  If you choose to vaccinate that is totally up to you! Just don't do it blindly like we did.  It almost cost us our babies life. 



When our first baby, Benjamin, arrived I never thought twice about vaccines.  Its what the Doctors said they needed and after all Doctors know everything right?  I didn't really have a reason to question it.  When we went in for Benjamins 4 month check he got several vaccinations which included Dtap, PVC, HIB, Polio, RV.  Of course it always was sad to have to hold him down and listen to him scream as he was injected with what I was told he needed to be protected.  We went home and of course he had the normal after vaccine crankiness.  After a few nights he simply couldn't sleep.  He acted as if he was in pain.  He was a sleep through the night baby at this point but just was so restless and not normal.

A week after his vaccinations he developed a very high fever.  We took him to his doctor with a fever of 104.  They said it would run its course and just to keep an eye on it.  His breathing was very fast and labored so they did an xray but said it was clear.  They took blood work but it would be days before they had any real results.

By the time he got home his fever was over 105!  I called the hospital and the nurse told me to bring him in.  We were promptly taken back to the ER and began tests. They put an IV in his lil head and put a cup over it so he wouldn't mess with it.  With in a few hours we were being admitted. The first thought was that he had some type of meningitis because the spinal tap showed something but they weren't sure yet.  After the 2nd day they came in and said he had a form of staph but they weren't sure where it was.  He was being given all kinds of antibiotics to fight whatever it might be but his counts were still not good at all!
On about the 4th day I noticed he had stopped moving one of his legs completely.   Within minutes of me telling the nurse, he was being prepped for surgery.  We had no idea what for at that point.
They called for a pediatric orthopedic specialist and he came in and told us that it looked as if the infection was in his leg and they needed to do an immediate surgery.  The doctor was hopeful but realistic.  Benjamin was a very very sick baby and it didn't look good. 

There we were in the hospital, new parents and our 4 month old baby on the brink of death.  At the time our childrens pastor and his wife from church had just happened to come by at the right time.  They prayed for Benjamin and the doctors etc and it helped ease our fears a little.

We waited in the waiting room for what seemed like hours, I have no idea how long it actually was but I was focusing on holding it together. 
They did an incision in his hip but the infection wasn't there.  It was actually down in his thigh.  Right where he had his immunizations a week before!  They had to open up his leg and clean out a lot of the very serious infection.  

 These pictures are actually during the last week there when he was getting better.  I didnt have the heart to take pics when he had the iv in his head.

After the surgery they told us he would likely have to go back in again and get more.  

He wasn't getting better after the 2nd week he had even stopped eating and they were having to feed him through a tube! They went back in on the other side of his leg and cleaned out some more infection.  We ended up being in the hospital for 3 1/2 weeks!  Several times the doctors told us they didn't know if he would make it.  When he started getting better they were actually surprised.  We knew God protected our precious baby!


The orthopedic surgeon said the infection was likely from his immunizations.  After all the spot of the infection was in the exact spot of shots!  And how else does a perfectly healthy, 4 month old baby who is breastfed exclusively and at home with me 24/7 get a serious life threatening staph infection inside his thigh?  He has 3 large scars on his leg and 2 on his neck from where they had to put in a port line to give him medicines for such a long time. 

Before we were even released from the hospital we had already found a new Doctor. I started doing research on Vaccines and was a little surprised by what I found.  I am not going to get into a big anti vaccine post/debate.  If you choose to vaccinate, thats up to you and your family.  I just ask that you do as much research as possible, research both sides and not just what big pharmaceutics companies that make huge profits say and dont vaccinate blindly.  I did and it almost cost us our babies life. 

When doing research there are two big things I noticed.  First the ingredients and second the lack of need for them, meaning, most of them are for things that aren't life threatening.  I could go on for hours but I just dont have the time! I'm not going to go into everything but I will share a few of my fav pics from one of my fav FBs and some links.

One book I really loved was the Vaccine Book by Dr Sears.  It isnt anti vaccine at all it just states the facts.  It tells you the ingredients and the risks etc.


http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vaccination-Information-Network-VINE/69667273997

http://www.facebook.com/national.vaccine.information.center

All these pics below are taken from http://www.facebook.com/thetruthaboutvaccines















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17 comments:

  1. We were just starting to think about the safety of vaccines when my children were little..I hesitated but went ahead with them. I guess we were the lucky ones as everything turned out ok. Thank you for posting your story.

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  2. Thank you so much for sharing this... it made me cry :( I'm glad your baby is alright and I don't get into the vaccine arguments, either. American doctors push pharmaceuticals; each parent has their own right to choose what they want to do for *their* child--vaccinate, don't vaccinate, delayed-schedule vaccinations. I'm so sorry that your baby went through all of this, but I'm so, soooo happy that he's alright. You shared a lot of great information and you have a lot of class. I'm glad to be following you <33

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  3. Thank you. I'm off to the library. So glad your little guy pulled through.

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  4. Staph is very scary - although my kids haven't had any vaccination issues, my oldest has eczema and we dealt with staph infections and abscesses every 4 to 6 weeks for 3 years. Everyone in the family had at least one staph infection too. My mother in law almost died from hers - she had to have surgery because it had gone from a mosquito bite on her underarm, basically to the top of her breast. It's such a scary thing and it can happen very quickly.

    By the by, great informative post about the risks involved with vaccinations! You put out information without preaching and that is often how people will lose their audience when they try and educate others :)

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  5. You are so brave sharing this! We've made different vaccine decisions for our daughter than most people do, and I am terrified of saying anything. It's nice to know that I have a friend in blogland who is similar to me!

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  6. You must have been terrified so glad your little one made a great recovery. My third is due in November it scares me to think that some parents go through what you went through. Thanks for sharing i think its very brave of you, must be hard to talk about. x

    http://charliesandharrysdaddy.blogspot.co.uk

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  7. I've wrote a post about vaccinations on my blog as well when Zeva kept getting sick from getting them. I'm still so leery over the kids getting their shots. However, I also do believe in them getting them only because my mom was a nurse for over half of my life and she believed in them. Plus when I have gotten the flu shot, I didn't get sick. I can definitely understand how your situation though would cause you to think they are bad!! I was scared with Zeva getting them for some reason, and she reacted the worse to the shots compared to all the other kids. I honestly believe the shot situation has become a scary situation for all parents.

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  8. I am your newest follower from the blog hop! My babies are all bigger now but, even my school age children I think twice before allowing them to be injected with all these new vaccines. It scares the heck out of me now with what I know about them and feel lucky to have healthy children since they did have the typical vaccines as babies. Would love to have you stop by for a visit to www.realsouthernliving.com! Thanks! ~Stacey

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  9. Wow thank you for sharing. I beg my friends to just research vaccines! I love what you had to say, and I agree with everything you said. Love this post so much

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  10. Wow. Thank you so much for all of the information. I've always been so torn on vaccinating & I'm still not really sure where I stand. I guess I still have some research to do. I'm so glad your little guy is getting better. It must have been so scary & I'm sorry you guys had to go through that!

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  11. that is so scary that happened to you! I wonder if you would have decided not to vaccinate if you had done research before hand. You may have thought the benefits still outweighed the risks. I'm glad you're spreading the knowledge of what could happen though!

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  12. I am so freaked out right now. We got our 2 month vaccines 2 weeks ago....but his four month appointment is in December. After reading this i'm seriously contemplating telling the doctor no?! This is so scary, so thankful your little man is alright & safe in your arms!! I balled my eyes out when I gave birth they came in every hour it felt like to take him away & do stuff to him because my water had broke so they kept giving him medication & stuff, I couldn't take it. I'm really confused I guess....what if your child would have gotten one of the life threatening diseases that the vaccines prevent, ya know? Idk, does the benefit out weigh the risks? I realize it became life threatening because of the vaccine as well, but gosh this is too freaky.

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  13. How scary and what a miracle that Benjamin ended up being okay. I had done a bit of research before I had my little guy and worked with my doctor to come up with a plan that was more agreeable to me. We never did more than two shots at a time. Once you researched how did you handle vaccines for your other two?

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  14. Your poor little guy! Having a baby in the hospital is the worst thing ever, it's absolutely heartbreaking. I can't believe the doctor's were being so negative I wonder why they put an IV in his head, Aliceana had IVs in his arms (and foot once for a CT scan) they had to put a new one in every day though because she moved around way more than the preemies!

    We're vaccinating Aliceana (and she even has to have extra so she doesn't get sick this winter, since a cold would put her back in the hospital) but I'm definitely only allowing them to give her 2 per visit.

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  15. None of my kids have been...so thankful your little guy is ok! It's just such a roll of the dice, i truly believe just being informed (on both sides of this subject) is the way to go, then go with your heart. We put alot of prayer into our decision 12 years ago, and still stand by it. This is an old book, but really great, "How To Raise A Healthy Child, In Spite Of Your Dr" By Dr. Robert Mendelsohn - it's like my go-to. We are by no means, "let this here snake bite'cha and if'n ya live, God wanted you here" or no Dr visits or intervention types, but vaccines were just not for us.

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  16. I'm guilty of shoving the vaccination information sheets into the diaper bag and not even reading those. What makes it even worse is the fact that I'm a nurse... I should know better (especially when it comes to my children). Props on the way you presented this, though. I'm definitely convicted to do my research now!

    Christine

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