Measles: A Patient’s Perspective

ARIEL LOOP IS a registered nurse who lives with her husband, Chris, and young son, Mobius, in Southern California. Perhaps because she works in healthcare, Ariel was concerned about the risks of flu and whooping cough, especially since Mobius was born a month early in the middle of fall 2014. The cautious mom kept her infant inside for the first two months of his life, just to be safe. “I made sure to get a Tdap and flu shot myself while pregnant in hopes of passing a bit of protection to the baby, who would spend some of the cold and flu season otherwise completely unprotected,” says Ariel. “We kept him almost entirely at home until after his first round of vaccines at two months. We were counting down the days until we’d be able to start getting out with him.”

In January 2015, the young family decided they were ready for their first big outing. As longtime Disneyland annual passholders, Ariel and Chris felt “the Happiest Place on Earth” was the perfect setting to introduce Mobius to the world. Sadly, that seemingly harmless decision turned into a harrowing ordeal for the couple when their baby became one of the hundreds of people who were exposed to measles while visiting the Disney theme park. “It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that the very first time my 4-month-old son got sick, it was with the measles,” says Ariel. “Actually, we were not  there during the initial outbreak, but it appears that Mobius contracted measles at Disneyland when we visited in mid-January.”

Getting the Diagnosis

The days before Mobius’s rash appeared, his parents say he seemed just a little off, but they were not concerned until he began rubbing his eyes nonstop. Because he had no outward symptoms yet, the couple took Mobius out with family and friends multiple times in the days preceding his diagnosis, not realizing how contagious he was. “Unbeknownst to us, we exposed hundreds of people to measles,” explains Ariel. “This fact weighs heavy on my heart; although Mobius was too young to be vaccinated, I know this all could have been prevented had the person who infected him gotten vaccinated.”

Mobius’s temperature was just over 102 for several days, and refused to budge despite the medication and cool baths. Doctors ran three sets of tests on him: blood and nasal swabs in the ER, and then the health department came in and collected urine. The tests from the hospital came back first, but Ariel says it still took almost five days to confirm the diagnosis of measles. For Ariel, watching her son suffer through this serious infection was a mother’s worst nightmare. “It was traumatizing to feel my infant son’s entire body rattle as he breathed. While he was able to fight through the infection, it worries me to think of the repercussions an even more widespread resurgence of measles could cause.”

The Ongoing Vaccine Debate

As a parent and as a nurse, Ariel says she understands that people on both sides of the vaccination debate are doing what they feel is best for their children. She notes that there are so many personal decisions that parents make — cloth diapers vs. disposable, breast milk vs. formula — but none have an impact on the community at large like vaccination decisions. “I know not everyone agrees with me, but I think not vaccinating your child due to fear of an incredibly rare side effect amounts to not wearing a seat belt because of the minute chance it may cause more harm than good,” explains Ariel. “It’s easy to feel comfortable because diseases like measles aren’t ones we personally see every day, but if this trend of delaying or skipping vaccines continues, diseases that were close to being gone will make a comeback. In fact, they already have. And my son is living proof.”