According to a mother from Sacramento, California, an “irresponsible decision” by another mother not to vaccinate her child has exposed her terminally ill son to the measles.
When he was 4-months-old, Jackson Souza was diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis, a disease that causes both small and large tumors to grow in the brain.
His mother, Rayna Souza says that the condition is terminal.
“He will succumb to his disease at some point,” she told KTXL.
Jackson, who is now 7-years-old, was taken to the hospital last month because he was experiencing seizures. During his stay at the hospital, his mother was told by doctors that her son had been exposed to measles.
“When I found out, I was mortified,” she said. “My son is already terminal. I don’t have any area to risk any potential — anything with him, because I’m just like walking around him with a plastic bubble just to try and keep him here as long as I can.”
Jackson was quarantined at the hospital for 18 days. According to doctors, he was exposed to an unvaccinated child who was brought to the hospital after catching the virus while overseas.
“Jackson was in the emergency department room where this other patient was seen,” Dr. Dean Blumberg told KTXL. “It was less than an hour of separation between them, so there was potentially still measles virus in the air.”
According to Dr. Blumberg, measles is a hard disease to identify when it’s at the early stages, and that’s what created the situation in which Jackson was exposed.
The news is just another in a string of recent stories about measles outbreaks across the US, usually sparked by people who either consciously or unconsciously skip vaccinations.
Souza says that the recklessness of people who refuse to vaccinate their children could shorten her son’s already vulnerable life.
“People making irresponsible decisions for their family and their child need to really, really look and see how that could affect other people because I still could lose my son,” she said.
Featured image: screen grab/KTXL
