t h e m a y f i l e s is foremost a family blog, chronicling everyday life. Life including natural, healthy eating (with recipes thrown in at random), home educating (with ideas popping up sporadically), an attempt to homestead on .2 acres (with very meager yields), raising 3 of 4 children with a rare genetic disorder, and lots of highly personal family triumphs and failures. You may also find an eclectic array of musings on politics, exercise, sewing, emergency preparedness, backyard chickens, and religion. This blog isn't a campaign to glorify anyone or anything. Just simply a record.

7.10.2008

A Shot in the Leg (Four to be Exact)

It is amazing how much trust I put in my doctor today. I think moms usually just breeze through and don't really think about it. The doctor injecting something foreign into our own little, helpless lifebloods laying there on the table. Emmett, my purest little angel, laid there smiling and kicking his feet, like the happiest thing alive. I cringed inside thinking about it. Torn. I allow the vaccinations because I have to trust it is the best thing. For my children. For the greater society. But there is a piece of me that is uncomfortable with this. I think of autism. The pain it would cause me for the smiling responsive face of my son to be locked away inside of him... There are so many unknowns.

On so many levels it is hard to know who and what to trust. I guess I try to hold on to my optimism that the government and drug companies are altruistic at heart. I hope I am right. But I won't be caught dead ever taking meds for high cholesterol etc. But I just gave my child vaccines. Thankfully, Brent has been off of him reflux medicine for a year now without incident. It turns out our naturopath doctor discovered he hadn't had reflux all those years (nearly 4 of them, consisting of 2 pills a day, antacids and mucas thinners galore) of taking medication. He had an usual bacteria called H. pylori. A 10 day dose of antibiotics and he was cured from years of suffering. All of the traditional doctors would have had him on aciphex his entire life. There is a place for alternative medicine in my families lives. A place for traditional medicine as well. Finding the balance between who to trust and when is the trick.

1 comment:

Margret said...

Isn't that the truth! As a mom, you fight with your whole heart to do the very best for your precious little ones, only to have the evening news report that some step you took to prevent illness (or worse) is the step that injures children instead. There is so much that doctors don't know. But, the diseases that vaccines protect from (whooping cough, measles, etc.) can do so much damage and cause so much pain--let's all pray for guidance to find that balance...