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i thought i would just reply to myself here - it might be of use to others in the future....
last week we had a check-up at the BMT clinic and the doctor that usually sees shane was quite surprised at my concerns with him being re-vaccinated. i told her that i had been waiting for a phonecall and also waiting to hear what vaccines they were planning on giving shane. she presented me with a very long list, most of which were not concerning. as i guessed, they were proposing the live MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella). we had a lengthy discussion and she stressed that "herd" vaccines were the best way to go. i disagreed.
measles, admittedly, can be nasty as i know it can at worst, lead to death. it can also cause deafness. i had it in mind that at a push, i would agree to this one. mumps - the worst case could result in infertility. i figured that as outlined in shane's conditioning protocol, the hemo said that shane would be infertile, then mumps wasn't an issue for us either.
as for rubella, it's a disease that preys on pregnant women. i know i sound awfully selfish here, but why should i risk relapse in shane to comply with "herd" vaccination?
well the long and short of it was... i told her that if they (her and his hemo) felt he should get MMR, then i would trust them and go along with it. but i felt it was my duty as a parent, to bring to their attention the risks involved through the AA guidelines in the British Journal of Haemotology. i said that if shane relapsed, i wouldn't forgive myself for not questioning their decision to give him these vaccines. with that, we left her office and headed off for some blood tests.
she later tracked me down and said shane's hemo was on her way to speak to me. i was relieved that i had provoked a reaction. a few minutes later, our hemo appeared and said that they would today take blood to perform titers - testing to see what (if any) immunity he had maintained after ATG and chemo. based on that, they would closely look at the risks involved and evaluate the necessity for the MMR vaccine. she did conclude that if any, mumps would be a vaccine that they would probably go ahead with. she expanded by saying that although we believed shane would be infertile, there was always a chance he could be fertile. so based on that, we have to assume he is and act in his best interests to preserve that. i couldn't agree more.
so shane had to give quite a bit of blood for all these tests. however, i feel very happy and believe i got the result i wanted.... i wanted them to investigate this further and not allow shane to float through the system of "6 months off immunosuppressants - vaccinate" without looking into the possible adverse affects of vaccination.
so, i'm pretty pleased with myself :-)
gina xxx
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