- cross-posted to:
- utah
- cross-posted to:
- utah
“It is not a mild infection, it is not a mild virus; it is a severe illness. And they kept on telling me they wish they’d known beforehand how bad measles was, so that they could have protected their family,” she said.
In April 1975, at nine years old, I had chicken pox, measles, and strep throat, one right after the other. I know when it was, because I remember laying on the couch, watching TV and seeing that the Vietnam War had ended. I didn’t even know there was a war.
I suppose I got through it okay because I was young and also lucky. I do remember it was pretty fucking awful. Especially needing to try to keep up with my school work at home.
You know how there’s always this one lingering childhood resentment that’s hard to let go of? Here’s mine:
I don’t remember exactly how old I was, just that it was some age when candy and presents were really important. But however old I was at the time, I got chicken pox as a kid (no vaccines for it back then).
I got it around Halloween, and my parents wouldn’t let me go out trick-or-treating. I objected strongly because, you know, candy! So they sent my sisters out with a spare pillowcase to collect candy for me, which they dutifully did.
When they got back, instead of coming into the house, they sat down on the sidewalk a couple houses away and dumped each pillowcase into it’s own separate pile. Then they traded out all of my chocolate for all of their Mary Janes and Bit o’ Honeys. I had literally no chocolate or other preferred candy in my bag, it was all the crap candy no one ever wanted. I complained to my parents and was told that I should be grateful just to be getting any candy at all.
Two months later, both my sisters got chicken pox. My grandparents, saying how awful it must be to have chicken pox over the holidays, gave them extra Christmas presents. This is my lingering childhood resentment, and the injustice of it still stings.
My mom’s friends brought their kids over when I got chicken pox for a party, as they used to. I remember wondering what the hell was going on. This was a year or two after you got the trifecta. Chicken pox was bad enough, that must have sucked.
i remember had to get aveeno bath for chickenpox, dint realize i had the vaccine in '99 until i checked, because i got shingles like late 2000s.
VARICELLA was pretty pervasive prior to 1995-2000s, everyone had it, even with vaccine it wont give you full immunity against varicella infection, or stops it from becoming dormant. apparently if you get chickenpox before the vaccine, it does little against shingles reactivation. i was in a sub where people were getting subclinical wild type of chickenpox and then shingles like 10+years later.