In case you didn't hear

Daniel is recovering from whooping cough (pertussis). Yes, people do still get this.

One of the things that got Daniel to go to a doctor was the vomit that followed his coughing fits.
Our interaction went something like this.
Me (in an alarmed voice): You are coughing so hard you are throwing up???
Daniel: Yeah, that happens to people all the time. I am just coughing so hard I can't keep the food down.
Me: I have never heard of that. That has never happened to me before. Has it happened to you?
Daniel: Well, no, but I am sure it happens to people all the time.
Come to find out coughing so hard that you barf is a tell-tale sign of pertussis. Daniel also had a low-grade fever, headaches, overall tiredness, and no sleep from coughing.
Oh, and an interesting side-note- whooping cough is named this because of the high-pitched "whoop" sound made when the person tries to take a breath during a coughing spell. Most adults do not experience the whoop.

Another thing that got us to go to a doctor was this woman's devastating story. One of my friends linked to it on her blog the week before Daniel started coughing. (He was actually probably already contagious when I read the story, but he was out of town and he hadn't started coughing yet.)

Whooping cough is on the rise. Why? First, because in the last 25 years parents have not been vaccinating their children as much (Pertussis is the "P" in the DTaP shot) so there is a generation of children and young adults who are more vulnerable. Second because the immunization is not life-long. Adults need to be vaccinated for it. I had no idea. A 2005 New York Times article by Kate Murphy focused on the fact that pertussis is back with a vengeance. Adults like Daniel are falling ill. Infants like the one from the my link above are falling deathly ill. Perhaps what is most dangerous about it is that most people don't know for weeks that they have it. By that time they have exposed many people.

While the number of people contracting and dying from whooping cough in the United States is not incredibly high, the thing that especially strikes me is how preventable these deaths are. "Pertussis is the only vaccine-preventable disease that is associated with increasing deaths in the U.S. The number of deaths increased from 4 in 1996 to 17 in 2001, almost all of which were infants under one year" In 2005 there were 20 deaths from pertussis.

Here is my plea: please vaccinate yourself and your children against pertussis so that you a) don't contract it and b) don't infect others. Daniel likely exposed many people to pertussis before getting treatment. I just pray that if he infected anyone they can recover like he did
(He's not contagious any more- don't stay away from us friends!)

I will be eternally grateful I chose to vaccinate Sadie. While I do wish I had done more research on vaccinations so I could have made a more informed choice, I don't want to even imagine the possible consequences if we had not gotten her vaccinated. Sadie got her third DTaP shot during the week Daniel was out of town (and probably most contagious). Like I said- eternally grateful.

Thanks for reading my rant.