My Story

 I don't expect that any reader would agree with all I am going to say. I don't expect to sway critical minds. But...I do believe in story. I believe we all have a story. I believe how we see things is relative to our upbringing and experiences in our individual and very different lives. I also believe in listening to our stories. That's why we have coffee with a friend and put our hand on theirs as they pour their heart out. We don't meet with them to find points to rebuttal or debate with. (Well, maybe some of us do. Lol. But you know what I mean...some conversations are fun to have a dialogue back and forth, but others call us to just be ears and hear. Maybe we'll tell them our story too that day...or maybe we let them have the moment and save our story for next time.)

So today I share my story...or at least a part of it. I type these words coming from what my lense sees & where my experiences have brought me to.

Let's tear the bandaid off first because of all that's going on and say that I'm double jabbed. I'm not vax-injured, nor has any of my family been. I have my vax-pass that I have used in restaurants on occasion & for the most part at the ice rink where my boy plays hockey. My kids are all under 12 and we haven't faced some of the hard decisions others have had to.

I should also follow up all that to say we do other vax-things... like our annual flu shot & the regular jabs on the vax-schedule the kiddos have from public health.

I'd like to now interject with some personal thoughts in regards to the real life people around me: I stand for vax freedom! 

Not ever would I try to convince a mom-friend to vaccinate her children if her mama-bear instict says no.

Not ever would it effect my social decisions if our friends don't jab too. The play date is still on! ;) I might not comment on their latest Facebook post (ironic that I'm going to share this on my Facebook feed, right?🙃), but I will listen to THEIR why face-to-face if they share it with me, and share mine if they invite it...but I will not argue. I have no right to a narrative in their story. (And I'll honestly say that I'm secretly hoping that some anti-vax mom that knows me might read this and go, "Oh! Bonnie's pro-vax but WON'T sneer at me?! Cool."...just FYI)

Not ever would I put extended family under pressure to get this new jab or the annual flu-vax jabs (or any other jabs for that matter!) for our family's sake. I have spoken to grandparents and aunties and tried to make it clear that we would NEVER ask them to do it for us, but that if they do it, it's with their own choice & freewill. I made it clear that there would be no disassociation on our part of they chose to refrain from any vax.

So...back up. Why would family be asking us if they should get one jab or another?

Hello 2015.

In 2015 we welcomed our second beautiful baby boy into the world. To tell you of all the health history would take ages, but the condensed version is:

He has a small trachea (breathing pipe). He's not "immunocompromised", but "structurally compromised". He spent over 250 days in hospital by the time he turned 5, many of those were multiple admissions to the PICU for symptoms caused by the common cold.

We started pulling back from gatherings if someone was sick, handwashing/sanitizing when company came over or when we went out anywhere, masking on occasion in public spaces during cold season *when we deemed it necessary*. It was hard. It was lonely. Those who had never seen our boy with a breathing mask, feeding tube & IV bruises didn't understand our caution. The sniffles for them was weeks of chaos for us. 

Our doctors worked with us to educate us on his condition. Sure, they gave us advise on germ precautions but they also had honest conversations about quality living...sometimes with no clear answers or instructions. We worked and thought and cared together as a team, with decisions essentially being ours. The parents. As it should be.

So hopefully by now you at least can make out a vague image of where I'm coming from. To be honest, if you had talked to me a year ago, I would have told you my emotional health was IMPROVING because we weren't alone in all the germ precautions anymore! The pandemic public measures were helping us "blend in". We didn't have to leave the library because another child was coughing. We didn't see kids at soccer with boogers running down their face. We didn't catch as many colds and got to stay at home and have a "more normal" life than ever. Cool! Thanks everyone! But I now look and see that these "great" 2 years for us (relative to the heavily hospital-admitted years we were used to) were at the expense of other family's worlds crumbling. I knew what it was like to fear more germs. I knew what it was like to miss out on events. I knew what it was like to miss out on being normal. I knew for certain that I wouldn't wish that on anyone else...and now the families around us were being told to do things like us for our sake. The compromised. As kind as that is and as grateful as I am, I cannot help but mourn at the prospect of regular families shifting into our way of life too.

I have listened and heard stories of tragic virus-caused deaths (& witnessed one in a neighboring PICU bed) as well as heard friends talk about their experience with vax-injury flipping their world and THEIR family's health upsidedown. I refuse to set aside their stories. I refuse to dismiss them. I just refuse to bully or look down on one side or another. 

I will support those around me who have a story & respect their decisions as parents who love & care for their children more fiercely than any other being could. I support families putting mental health & wellness back into the priority pile & having the freedom to get back to normal without enforced conditions. I support education on health and pandemic-reducing strategies, but not the mandates of them. I support the decision to stay home when you're ill (like our great-grandmothers used to before we were pharma-dependant). I support the willing workers in our country who want a job with AND without the jab.

So there we go. I'm pro-vax, but pro-freedom more. I'm pro-science and don't believe it all points in one single direction. I'm pro-mama instict. 

The measures I take for my family are my decision. If mask mandate leaves, we'll probably still be the funny looking maskers in the produce aisle during cold season. I'll probably still have a bottle of sanitizer in my purse & I probably will tell my kids not to share their water bottles. We are a health-compromised family, so we have to take some extra steps. I won't be taking precautions because of any mandate; I'll be doing these because I'm a mom making decisions for my family because I know my family best. 

We need freedom for our doctors to be able to educate their patients and have open team-player conversations with them....non-scripted, honest & personal, even differing in opinion from one another. We need the freedom to custom-taylor our actions & decisions to what our individual families need. We need the freedom and the welcome to share our stories.

Thanks for reading mine. <3

-Bonnie