Pertussis

Well, we just survived (I think) over a month and a half of the whole family suffering from pertussis (whooping cough). Yes, there is a vaccine for it. However, the Health Dept. informed me (we were reported) that the vaccine is only 80% effective. I believe it, because it seems that so many people I know are walking around with it unbeknownst to them (but I know now - I'm an expert at pertussis). Well, somehow, my fully vaccinated 9 year old picked up the virus, which can harbor for 3 weeks before symptoms show and when they do, just look like a bad cold, fever, slight vomiting, etc. Before you know it, it goes through the whole family to ,finally, my not-quite-2-mo.-old. Grace and the baby got it the worst and we got NO sleep for a month, being wakened every 15-45 min. with a coughing and drowning in phlem, vomiting child or two. The baby stopped breathing a few times and even turned blue. If we hadn't slept many nights with him on our chest, I sure we would have lost him. I got a bad cough with complications to and ended up freezing my diaphram muscle so that I couldn't breath AT ALL for almost 2 min. Very Weird. It totally freaked out Marie who had to call 911. So, I went to emergency after finally starting to breathe again and got my diagnosis. You'd think 5 trips to the doctor would have given a clue before hand. But, now that it is all over, we know what the plague was. We should have coughs for a few more months though, so I learned from the internet. Deep breathing steam with Tea Tree Oil has helped tremdously to get the remaining burrs out of my lungs and Drosera tablets have helped, just like the online doctors said. I love the internet. It has saved us more than once. I've always said, "if you can just get the doctors to give an accurate diagnosis, then the internet can do the rest."