Juicing, Opinions and Vaccinations

Juicing

I've been juicing a lot in the past two weeks. The main things being carrots and apples. Occasionally I throw something exciting in there, but for now I'm pleased with the same old same old. If I were diagnosed with cancer I would live on fresh juice. Probably less carrot and more greens. Juicing is an excellent way to provide nutrition to your body. You get the vitamins and minerals from the item juiced, but almost no work for your body to digest. Digestion is a very energy taxing function of the body. When you are sick you want your body to rest as much as possible.

Anyway...back to juicing. Havah loves it. We wash the carrots and apples together. I trim the ends and let her help me push them into the juicer. Then we put the juice in tiny little tea cups and have our "tea time". She is so absolutely delightful. Havah says the funniest things. I love to sit and chat with her. My sister likens her to a cartoon and it is a perfect comparison. Havah is very tiny, but has a personality larger than life. I wish everyone could know the joy that it is to have her as my own. At the same time I feel very special that I know and not everyone does.

I have a very nice juicer - maybe I should say had. When Sean and I got married we went for it and bought the kitchen appliances that we knew we would love and would last us a lifetime. We got a Vitamix, a 10 cup food processor and a Green Star Juicer. They are all amazing and are all used regularly. The juicer can be a bit of a pain to use though. It produces an amazing amount of juice from the things you stick through it. You can do all kinds of other things with it. The down side is that you have to push quite hard to get a carrot to go through. Also, there are several parts to be taken apart and washed with each use. It has been living at "the shop" where we make soda. I got it back for a few days and remembered how laborous it was to use and quickly traded it in for our old Juiceman JR. Cheap and easy to use. It produces much less juice but I'm done in less than 5 minutes. You can get a Green Star when you are a serious juicer. They are about $450. You can get a Juiceman almost anytime. They are $50. The Green Star is now back at the shop where it belongs.

Opinions

I come from a big family that is very skilled in forming opinions. My sister Angela being the very best at opinions. When I need one I always know that she will have a very good one for me. I am also quite opinionated. I don't think that I'm judgmental (being the humble one that I am), but about things I have looked into I feel pretty confident in my opinions. When it comes to thoughts about people, actions, what's for dinner or why someone did something they way that they did - I usually pass on having an opinion. An opinion is like a nose. Everyone has one, right? My friend Jennifer wrote an excellent blog post on opinions. So in the next few paragraphs there may be an opinion or two. I'm not telling you what I think you should do. I'm just telling you what I do.

Vaccinations

Havah and Barch are not vaccinated or immunized. For anything. Sean and I decided that we were not against them getting booster shots. We just don't feel comfortable with them getting them at such young ages and weights. When we felt it was the right time we planned to figure out exactly which shots we want them to get.

So with all this scare of WC I am getting calls, opinions and recommendations from all kinds of medical professionals and people from the health department. Of course they are all telling me that I need to get Havah and Baruch vaccinated right away. Both of them need to get up to schedule with all of their shots and they need to do it right away. Israel and Judah only had a few shots when they were little so we are being "encouraged" to get them up to date also. I'm also getting lots of questions from these same folks about why I have yet to get my children immunized.

So I have a few facts for you about the pertussis vaccination. They are from different sources - I don't believe all of them to be facts.

The CDC says that WC is the most widely spread disease which is preventable by vaccination.

The CDC said in 2009 that only 0.06 of the US population was not current on their vaccination schedule.

The CDC said that last year there were more than 17,000 reported cases of WC in the US. They also said that many more cases go unreported.

My new friend at the KC Health Department, whose name I won't mention here, told me that it doesn't matter if you get vaccinated for WC. If you are exposed to WC you are very likely to get it.

My doctor at the Urgent Care told me that if Havah's test came back positive for WC that everyone in the house would have to be treated as if they had WC - even if they had been vaccinated for it. She told me that we should plan on everyone getting it (though they haven't) no matter if they had the shots or not.

A nurse at our family doctor (who talked to me like I was a Moron because I didn't take my kids to the well baby visits) told me the same thing. Their patients were getting WC whether or not they had their booster shots.

SO all of this makes me a wee bit angry. The pertussis vaccination has a reputation of being one of the most dangerous vaccinations. It is also one of the most widely used (possibly why it is getting all the bad reports). All of the risk in the vaccination for what??? My child would be just as likely to get the disease and have the exact same reaction to the disease! So why am I getting all of this pressure from my health care providers to get my children vaccinated for WC??? All of this makes me quite angry.

Another thing that really disturbs me is when medical professionals assume that they will make the decisions for your child. Uh no, when my baby is born you aren't going to poke and prod my brand new person. You can't take my child to the nursery. I will decide when my child will go to the doctor. I will decide when my child gets antibiotics, shots or any other medication. Please boss someone else around.

...

I do feel better having written that down. The above does not reflect my opinion on all vaccinations. For example - a few years ago Sean got vaccinated for the chicken pox. He was in his mid thirties and he decided that it was no longer worth the risk of getting chickenpox as an adult. It is much more dangerous for an adult to get chickenpox than a child.

When we decided not to have the little ones vaccinated we took the risk of them getting infectious diseases. When it comes to our decision about not having vaccinated for WC I am glad that we decided to wait. It is one that I do not plan to give them even later in life. Havah's immune system is doing an excellent job of killing this disease. We are seeing almost none of the major signs of WC that the CDC reports. This is not the case for all children, but it seems to be the case for mine. I have worked very hard to keep her in the best of health and nutrition.

We have also spent time praying for Havah's health. I believe that God is bigger than her cough and I tell her that all day.

And this too...

This is not my advice to you. I'm not suggesting that I know what you should do. I'm not suggesting that I know better than your doctor. I'm not giving you advice. Whooping cough is a serious virus! This year alone 10 infants died of pertussis in California because they had been misdiagnosed. So please...if you have pertussis or your child has it TAKE IT SERIOUSLY!

And one more thing. I'm sleep deprived. I'm stressed out. I will spell things incorrectly, punctuate incorrectly and use lots and lots of dot dot dots. I'm not likely to even reread these posts before posting. Hope it makes sense.