DS had oral surgery yesterday to replace the caps on his teeth and had to be put under general anesthesia (he'll be 4 in December, so no way he'd sit through it without GA) and the pre-op nurse was asking basic questions. She asked if he was up to date on his vax's and my mind immediately jumped to negative ER stories on here and I thought about saying, "He's right on our schedule," but decided against it. So, this is what happened.
Me: "We've decided not to vaccinate him at this point."
Nurse: "Are you planning on vaxing later?"
Me: "We're keeping our options open but, at this point, no."
Nurse: "Well, when he goes to school there are exemptions I think."
Me: "Yes, there are. He's already in school and we have an exemption."
Nurse: "So may I ask why did you decide not to vax?"
Me: "Well, I just felt that, after extensive research, the risks of the vaccines outweigh the risks of the diseases. He's healthy, we breastfed for two years, and he has an extremely low sugar intake which is a huge immune suppressant."
Then someone came in as she agreed about sugar suppressing the immune system and said something about "all that autism stuff" as a reason to not vax (and she meant it in a positive way!), and I said that was actually pretty low on my long list of reasons.
Too bad someone else came in because I would have loved to given her more info. But she was totally awesome about it! When she said, "Well, when he goes to school," I TOTALLY expected her to say something about vaxing then because of exposure to other kids but, nope! She not only KNEW about exemptions but she TOLD me about them in case I didn't know!
I also expected her to say something about vax's not causing autism when she mentioned autism but, again, nope! She said the autism connection was scary. And all this was after she asked how long we stayed in the hospital and I explained we birthed in a freestanding birth center (and pointed out that it wasn't connected to a hospital) and that we left 3 hours after his birth. She said, "Wow! I can't even put a day on here!" 
She was curious but in no way negative about that, and same reaction to my response to the "did you bottle feed or breastfeed?" question in which I replied that we nursed for 2 years.
How great is that?! I am thinking of finding out her name and writing Children's to let them know how awesome she is (she was also REALLY good with DS - he loved the little felt finger puppets she gave him, even though he's shy and stubborn and refused to admit it then, haha). I've NEVER had such a great reaction from a HCP who practiced mainstream medicine.
Me: "We've decided not to vaccinate him at this point."
Nurse: "Are you planning on vaxing later?"
Me: "We're keeping our options open but, at this point, no."
Nurse: "Well, when he goes to school there are exemptions I think."
Me: "Yes, there are. He's already in school and we have an exemption."
Nurse: "So may I ask why did you decide not to vax?"
Me: "Well, I just felt that, after extensive research, the risks of the vaccines outweigh the risks of the diseases. He's healthy, we breastfed for two years, and he has an extremely low sugar intake which is a huge immune suppressant."
Then someone came in as she agreed about sugar suppressing the immune system and said something about "all that autism stuff" as a reason to not vax (and she meant it in a positive way!), and I said that was actually pretty low on my long list of reasons.
Too bad someone else came in because I would have loved to given her more info. But she was totally awesome about it! When she said, "Well, when he goes to school," I TOTALLY expected her to say something about vaxing then because of exposure to other kids but, nope! She not only KNEW about exemptions but she TOLD me about them in case I didn't know!
I also expected her to say something about vax's not causing autism when she mentioned autism but, again, nope! She said the autism connection was scary. And all this was after she asked how long we stayed in the hospital and I explained we birthed in a freestanding birth center (and pointed out that it wasn't connected to a hospital) and that we left 3 hours after his birth. She said, "Wow! I can't even put a day on here!" She was curious but in no way negative about that, and same reaction to my response to the "did you bottle feed or breastfeed?" question in which I replied that we nursed for 2 years.How great is that?! I am thinking of finding out her name and writing Children's to let them know how awesome she is (she was also REALLY good with DS - he loved the little felt finger puppets she gave him, even though he's shy and stubborn and refused to admit it then, haha). I've NEVER had such a great reaction from a HCP who practiced mainstream medicine.
