Whenever I tell someone that I don't get vaccinations, everyone seems appalled.

There has been recent debate on whether or not people should be vaccinating their children, and most agree that vaccinations are worth the risk. But, I was raised in an anti-vaccination household and have been exposed to all the staggering statistics that are associated with vaccination.

When I was young, my mom refused to give me the chickenpox vaccination, one that almost everyone receives at 4-6 years old. She instead would bring me around all of my friends who had the chickenpox and try to make me get it. If you get the chickenpox when you are young, there is a lesser chance you will get shingles as an adult, which is not guaranteed by the vaccination. When I went to high school she had to give in, as the vaccination was required to go to school. I only got the vaccination at age 15.

My pediatrician stopped arguing with my mom about vaccinating my brother and I after a few years, and would just say "I'm guessing you're not going to give Noelle and Thomas the [insert vaccination] this time?". She wouldn't even try to give my mom the reasons why we should get them, as my mom always did extensive research and combatted whatever the physician would say.

Vaccinations are normally just a guess as to which strain is going to cause the most damage that year, and most of the time they are completely wrong. They can cause you to contract the disease its trying to prevent, as they are just injecting a dead virus, or you could acquire painful side effects. There are many side effects listed by The History of Vaccines, but some of them include rashes, fever, infection, encephalitis, and even death.

There was one vaccination that showed me one of these side effects, and I had to make a major change in my life. The Meningitis Meningococcal vaccination was one of the few vaccinations that I was required to get before I went into my senior year. My mom tried to wait as long as she could to give me the vaccination because she had heard of many issues with it.

I got the shot 2 weeks before going into my senior year of high school, and it was definitely the most painful shot I had ever received. My arm hurt for almost a week after, and I started noticing that I would get extreme nausea after I ate. Almost a month later, I went into anaphylactic shock after eating scrambled eggs for breakfast.

I saw my physician, and she gave me the news that I had developed an egg allergy at the age of 18. I was shocked, as I had been eating eggs all my life and they were a big component of my diet. The physician started to look for an explanation as to why I developed the allergy so suddenly and to such a high extent, and sent me to an allergist. The allergist confirmed that the egg protein that I was allergic to was the same protein that they used to make the Meningitis Meningococcal vaccination. The allergy was one of the many side effects that the vaccination causes, but isn't explicitly stated.

Now, I have to carry an epipen around with me at all times, and can not eat many of the foods that once made up my diet. I have had many allergic reactions as I try to find a way to deal with the sudden allergy. The allergist said that many allergies that arise from vaccinations should disappear in 5-10 years, which is a very long time that I have to avoid eggs.

For me, the risk wasn't worth it, especially since only a very small percentage of people in the United States contract meningitis. The vaccinations that we have today need to be improved immensely, need to protect against more than 1-5 strains of the particular virus, and need to have less side effects. Being educated to go into medicine, I hope that someday I can help to bring vaccinations to their full potential.