In Theory TV

My name is Veronica and about two years ago my life changed drastically. However, not just my life changed, but the life of my beautiful daughter has changed as well. She has been a healthy, energetic child. She has never had the word “can’t” in her vocabulary. She has always been focused on her future when her friends were going out on dates; my Carol was curled up with a good book. She was entering high school, and so excited for what was next in her life. However, we never really thought that in a blink of an eye that could all change. We have been put on the back burner time and time again. I am so tired of people telling me that I am being an overprotective mother where my daughter is concerned. We are sick of being swept under the rug, where our daughter’s health is concerned. Here is our story…………

If only I knew now what I needed to know then. I knew we have had some family members that have battled different cancers, so when I thought that I was doing something that would save my daughter it only hurt her and her dreams of having a normal life!! As a mother to any child you feel hopeless and frustrated because you can’t help your child with the pain, that is now making her get into a fetal position wanting the pain to go away. The guilt that I live with every day will be mine to bear for the rest of my life. And please trust me when I say if I could redo everything we have suffered this past two years I would. I even would be willing to take her pain if God could be so willing.

Carol had just made her high school color guard team (for anyone who doesn’t know what that is; it’s the kids on the football field with the flags). We took our daughter to see her doctor for a physical. Carol was healthy; she ate right tons of fruits & veggies. She has always been on the smaller side with girls of her own age. Her doctor gave her a good bill of health and the ok to go on the team. Her doctor told us about the new vaccine, and with our history we all thought that whatever we could prevent would save her in the long run. We got the little piece of paper to read about the vaccine, we read through the side effects. A little soreness at the inject sight, maybe some bruising, maybe even a little stiff. These side effects don’t seem to harmless do they? More harmless than what I thought I was protecting her from.

My child has had headaches before that we could treat with Tylenol, Aleve, or Advil….after receiving her first shot the headaches started becoming more evident in her daily routine. As she did follow ups to get the other shots in the series, the headaches went from manageable to extreme. My daughter went from seeing her doctor yearly into almost weekly, the headaches became migraines, which we couldn’t manage with over the counter medication. She started missing a ton of school; we were keeping track of what she was eating, drinking, sleeping, and the stress level of her daily routine. My child went from a 4.0 to a 1.2 GPA student in about a semester. We could not find out what was causing her migraines. We were sent to a neurologist for testing; they found no tumors, nothing that would be causing her migraines. They placed her on Maxalt and Topamax to help with the levels of pain that she is now dealing with.

The law states that your child is disabled when they are not able to do the same thing as other children their same age. Well we have had to pull her from school and her friends to home school around her migraines. She no longer can do her third year in the school Color Guard, due to missing so many practices and competitions. We are afraid to put her behind the wheel of the car by herself in case she gets a migraine and blacks out on the road. Plus her current medication makes her extremely tired…..so I want to know how people are saying she is NOT disabled? Are all of these items listed above not what normal children are doing for her age group? My daughter should be graduating this next year and getting ready for college, or at least those were her plans before getting these shots.
I did not put one and one together until last year when I was watching the Today show, and was listening to the news before my daycare children arrived. They were talking about the vaccine and how it was hurting so many young women. But when I was trying to get more information going through her doctor that first started treating her, to her new pediatrician, to the neurologist, through the Department of Health & Services, the CDC, and other agencies…all anyone could tell me was to call another number, another agency, another whatever. This has to stop and it has to stop now, for a country that prides themselves on raising children and telling them they can be whatever they dream, then why are we hurting our children this way?

Please if you are a mother, a father, a guardian of a young woman do NOT be silenced into someone telling you that it is only in your head and you are an over protected adult. Listen to your gut and start your story today, before one more woman becomes a victim of this nightmare.