Vaccines, upsetting experience tonight

[Guest guest]

I apologize if this message has already been seen by the group. I

have not seen it show up in my mail, and have not received any

responses so I am assuming that it did not go through to the list.

So, I am reposting it.

Hey friends,

I just had to write and tell you guys what happened to me tonight at

Walmart. We were just arriving when a woman was screaming at the

entrance to Walmart. She was holding her baby, about 1 year old, and

screaming that she wasn't breathing. This mom was hysterical. I ran

to the customer service desk to have them call 911, then I found a

man that knew CPR. I know it somewhat, but am a little rusty, so I

was hoping someone there was more familier with it than me. Luckily,

this man came running and handed me his baby so he could work on the

baby. The lady was still screaming hysterically, so I moved her away

from the baby so that he could hear if the baby was breathing. I was

just trying to calm her down, while he worked on the baby. Well,

luckily the baby was breathing, but she was having a seizure. Her

head was shaking and she was drooling, it must have been a pretty

long one, because it started when the people were out in the parking

lot in their car, and she was still shaking after I came back from

customer service. After it was over, the baby was very listless, and

glassy eyed. When the paramedics arrived, very quickly thank

goodness, they were asking the mom a lot of questions, ie. did the

baby have a history of seizures, had she been sick, was she running a

fever, ect. There was a lady there that was familier with seizures

so she was describing in detail what the symptoms were. I figured

they had it all under control so I left, very shaken, to do my

shopping. When I got half way across the store, it dawned on me, " I

wonder if this child has been recently vaccinated " . I ran outside as

they were putting her in the ambulance and asked the mother if she

had had shots recently, and she said yes, she had five on Tuesday. I

was just sick. The mom was getting into the ambulance with the baby.

I told the paramedic about the shots but he just looked at me like I

had horns. I caught the father in the parking lot to try to talk to

him, but they are Hispanic and he spoke very broken English. She

also didn't speak English very well, but better than him. I did get

their phone number and names from him and plan on contacting her

tomorrow. The trouble is, I don't really know what to tell her to

do. Of course, I will tell her to contact her pediatrician, or

wherever she got the shots and tell them what happened. But, I have

heard so many stories about Drs. telling someone that it is

unrelated, that I don't think that is enough help for this family. I

am at a loss as to how to council them at this point. I really want

to be able to help them help their child, but I have no idea what to

do excactly. If anyone on this list has any concrete ideas for me,

please write to me. If you would like to copy this to the other

groups, feel free. Please write to me privately as my group list

folder now has 680 messages, and I don't want to wade through them to

find a reply to this message. Thanks for letting me vent. I was so

shaken after that experience, I just started crying myself. That

poor mother, she was so hysterical, and I am sure they don't have a

lot of resources or the knowledge to deal with this. This area has

been really growing in its Hispanic population, and it is very

difficult for them to learn what to do to help their special needs

children. I have served on some boards and have learned that some

families can't even get seen by a speech therapist because the group

won't see a child if the parent can't speak English. They are really

at a disadvantage when it comes to helping their children. Well, if

anyone can help, let me know.

Take care,

Randee

Randee@...

P.S. If anyone knows of a vaccine related website written in

Spanish, send it to me. Maybe I could print some stuff off for her.