In Defense of Vaccinating Our Son with CF

Like with all things regarding parenting, some choices are easier to make than others. Whether it be what school to send your child to or what pediatrician they will see, being a parent is all about choices and hoping that you are making the best ones.

Just like the decision to allow our 12-year-old son to get the Covid vaccine.

Before we made any final decisions, we sat down with both his pulmonologist and his pediatrician to get their input on him getting it. Both gave us a resounding YES, he should get it. If there are any people that I need to get vaccine information from, it would be his care team and only his care team.

Do your research, always

There is a lot of misinformation floating around out there and you have to pick and choose where you get your facts regarding getting the vaccine. The best source of information will always be doctors and those in the medical field. I have the utmost respect for our son's team of doctors and I trust them wholeheartedly. When they told me it was safe for him to get it, I knew that I had my final answer.

Was this an easy choice for us, even with his doctors consent? Not really. We hoped that in an effort to protect him, that we weren't putting him in harms way. We have heard about the side effects and the things that could possibly happen. But we had to weigh the good vs the bad and getting him vaccinated definitely outweighed the bad.

We asked him how he felt about getting vaccinated and he didn't have much to say about it. We wanted to know if he had any hesitations or questions as he hears the news and hears us talking about Covid. He wasn't even opposed to getting the shot at all, which for a 12-year-old, was very telling. He just said he would get it and left it at that.

Vaccinating our son

When he had Covid in March of this year, his symptoms were very basic: sneezing, coughing, upset stomach, a little fever, and fatigue. None of these, other than fatigue, lasted more than a few days. The fatigue last over a week. We thought that he got through it better than the rest of the people in the house who also got it, but his CF checkup in May proved otherwise.

His lung function had dropped 11% and he had lost 5 lbs. The only reason that we could come up with was his body was still trying to catch up from the residual effects of Covid. So when he became eligible for the vaccine, I was split in half on what we should do. Do we let him get it with a decrease in lung function or do we wait until he is back where he was pre-Covid. His pediatrician said "No, don't wait. Get it now. It could be worse if he gets Covid again."

His health and safety is our priority

School starts in a little over a week here and I did not want to send him without any sort of protection. Masks are not mandated here in our state but both of my children will be wearing them regardless. Numbers are picking up and I am glad that vaccinating him is now an option. It gives him one more layer of protection and it gives me peace of mind when he is at school.