By ten p.m. I’m in a hospital bed with a quarantine sign on the door to my room because on top of the measles, my fever has spiked to 103.6. The doctor says I have pneumonia, a common complication of the measles, apparently. I’ve never had pneumonia. I heard the doctor tell my mom how serious it is. All I know is it’s hard to breathe, and I legitimately might throw up from all the coughing and the mucus.
My mom is here, but my dad is home with Poppy and Sequoia. The thought of my sister and brother getting sick like this makes me feel even worse.
Guilty.
I lay on the bed like a scoop of mashed potatoes. I don’t even have the energy to turn on the TV. We don’t have one at home because my dad thinks TV is a “box full of garbage,” so I usually gorge on anything and everything whenever I end up in a room with one. Like this past summer when Mimi and I cruised through five seasons of her favorite reality show over the three weeks I visited. Sometimes Bumpa brought us artisanal doughnuts, which are seemingly all the rage in places that aren’t my kitchen. The irony isn’t lost on me that most of my knowledge of pop culture comes from my dad’s sixty-nine-year-old parents. But then again, Mimi and Bumpa are nothing like my dad. For one, they think homeschooling is “hogwash.” And two, they believe their son’s time could be better spent moving up the corporate ladder in some high-rise building with a corner office. This is probably exactly why my dad is the way he is. Kids never want to be like their parents. Because they’re so different, my mom and dad were wary of letting me visit Mimi and Bumpa alone, but Mimi’s hip surgery meant they needed the extra help I could provide, preparing meals and walking their Maltipoo, Duke. And even though I was finally away from my parents, I didn’t have a ton of freedom, since Mimi needed my round-the-clock help.
My mom’s voice is distant and garbled as she talks to the doctor. The words are swimming. Not loud and clear like the ones Dr. Soap Opera said to her at the urgent care clinic.
“There’s a reason you didn’t know what the measles looked like when you saw them,” he told her. “It’s because you grew up in a generation when parents got their kids vaccinated, because they did know. They knew the dangers. But now we have people like you, thinking your kids are protected because every other parent out there does it for you. But that’s not how it works. Not everyone is protected. Not everyone can actually have the vaccine. By not vaccinating, you don’t just put your own child at risk, you put people you don’t even know at risk.”
“Well, I’m concerned about my child and my child only,” my mom said.
“Of course you are,” said Dr. Soap Opera sarcastically.
The doctors and nurses at the hospital are nicer than the doctor at the urgent care clinic, even though they wear gloves and masks whenever they come into my room. Their protective gear only drives home how serious this is and how contagious I am.
They come in a lot. Taking my temperature. Checking my pulse. Listening to my lungs. And peeking at the monitors.
I try to sleep in between the visits.
The next morning, my dad shows up, and I have a new doctor with gray hair and gray eyes. He talks to my dad about all the immunizations I don’t have and makes earnest pleas to try to convince him to consider getting them for my siblings and me. He throws out words, saying they can be complications from the measles. Words like encephalitis. Blindness. Deafness.
None of it matters to my dad. “I’m looking at her getting better right in front of me. She’s going to be fine. Maybe we should talk about the possible complications from vaccines instead.”
“We’re certainly willing to help you work through your concerns,” the doctor says. “There are immunization makeup schedules.”
“I’m not pumping a bunch of carcinogens into my kids’ bodies. No, thank you. Aluminum. Formaldehyde. Thimerosal, better known as mercury.” He ticks them off on his fingers like he’s making a grocery list for the ingredients of Death Soup. “Not to mention links to autism, as I’m sure you know but don’t divulge.”
“First of all, the MMR vaccine doesn’t actually contain thimerosal. Secondly, the autism link is a fallacy,” the doctor says firmly. “And the risks of not having vaccines far outweigh the very small chance of a reaction. To be clear, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends—”
“Don’t give me your Big Pharma bullshit. All you doctors have some kind of agreement with them, I just know it. It’s a conspiracy so you can all make money. I’ve done my research.”
I get the feeling the doctor wants to shake some sense into my dad, that he wants to point at me in the bed as exhibit A, but he stays calm. My dad eventually leaves. The doctor tries all over again with my mom when she shows up with clean underwear for me.
I see a flicker in her when he mentions Poppy and Sequoia and how it’s basically inevitable that they’ll get sick, too. Will they get as sick as me? Sicker? What if they develop encephalitis and long-term complications?
My parents are most likely immune because they had the measles shot in the mid-1970s, but the doctor warns my mom that immunity can fade over time. There’s a blood test they can do to be sure. And there’s always a booster shot.
“If those shots aren’t good enough for my kids, they’re not good enough for me,” she says, and ends it at that.
Easy for her to say when her chance of getting the measles is relatively low.
In the afternoon, someone from the Centers for Disease Control visits. She sits down with my mom and me to trace my movements, taking note of everywhere I’ve been over the last few weeks. She tells us the CDC is trying to figure out where I might’ve gotten the measles in the first place and who else I could’ve exposed.
“Because there are reported cases up and down the state, our best bet is that you came into contact with the virus on the train coming home from Sacramento.”
“How many cases have there been?” I ask.
“We know of five so far. But it’s early days. It’s important we get the word out because the measles is highly contagious, which is why we need your family to self-quarantine for at least twenty-one days,” she explains. “A nonimmune individual has a ninety percent chance of contracting the virus if they come into contact with it. Plus, it can live for up to two hours on surfaces and in an airspace where an infected person coughed or sneezed.” She writes down a note. “We’ll put out public notifications on the local news and in the newspapers, so anyone at risk will be able to determine whether or not they were in the same places as you.”
“Does the whole town really have to know this?” my mom asks. “It seems like a violation of our privacy.”
“It’s a public safety issue, so yes. But don’t worry. The name of the patient is never identified.”
My mom crosses her arms. “Yeah, well, people have a way of finding out such things when they’re determined. Our town isn’t exactly a metropolis. It’s only a matter of time before they know who we are. And what happens then?”
“We’ll do everything we can to keep you anonymous. Your safety and protection are priorities for us.”
My mom doesn’t seem convinced.