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12:00pm April 20, 2013

codeman38:

disappearing—boy:

Sometime I want to write a list of all the possible disabilities that can be caused by kids getting illnesses that are vaccine-preventable and give it to people who are scared their kids will become disabled in general/autistic specifically if they’re vaxxed.

Bronchiectasis.

I’m autistic. And I have bronchiectasis. It’s a form of COPD rare in countries that have vaccines. It’s usually caused by repeated infections. Or cystic fibrosis. Or childhood diseases that vaccines can stop.

And I would way way way rather be autistic than have bronchiectasis any day, it requires daily nebulizer treatments for me to keep it from getting into a dangerous feedback loop, because it makes you more susceptible to the same infections that cause it to get worse. Mine is mild, and I’m still hacking stuff up all day long. I wouldn’t want to see severe, which can cause a lung transplant. It causes you to produce extra phlegm but have trouble clearing it, which is like a breeding ground for infection.

And it’s really unpleasant and I’d far rather not have it. In my case I didn’t get it from a childhood disease, but around the world, in places where they don’t have vaccines, it’s way more common because that’s where most people get it from. I got it from medical neglect, which happened because people don’t treat you right when you’re autistic. So I had an infection for ages and they didn’t pay any attention until my lung partially collapsed. They never apologized for the appalling way they treated me before that happened to my lungs, nor for not searching for the bronchiectasis until I got a pulmonologist more willing to listen to me when I said breathing was really difficult for me.

Anyway you can add bronchiectasis to the list of nasty things caused by vaccine preventable diseases.