Just a short one tonight - my internet is playing silly buggars and I am tired.
...
But I cannot go to bed without properly acknowledging the incredible interview my friends Toni and Dave did with the Sunday Night program, which aired on Channel Seven in Australia tonight.
...
Put simply, they were magnificent.
Magnificent and brave in the face of the most unimaginable grief for the beautiful, healthy baby girl they tragically lost to whooping cough just a few weeks ago.
Talk about a tough gig - knowing that they are putting themselves up there for the anti-vaccination groups to target and try and discredit. Knowing that they will be (from this point on) the face of an immunisation campaign, in the worst kind of way.
That was something they never intended, never could have anticipated.
They know their lives will never be the same.
And yet they did - they took a deep breath and faced the camera.
For Dana.
For their own peace of mind.
As Toni said:
'The only thing worse than the pain we are going through now, would be watching it happen to someone else and know that we could have said something, and didn't.'
...
I admit I cried pretty much the entire way through the story.
I knew I would.
How could I not?
Watching my friend's face crumple as she described what happened to her baby...
Excruciating. Mind-blowing. Surreal. Awful.
I hope it has some effect...
on the people who matter.
On our communities at large.
On parents who can be logical about this debate and make rational decisions.
On governments to properly shoulder the responsibility to keep our babies (and the vulnerable among us) safe from preventable and untreatable disease.
And to remind all adults that they too need boosters to stay immune and help protect the 'herd'.
...
Apparently J-Lo is also pushing the pertussis vaccine in America...
whatever it takes, I guess.
But really, it shouldn't take a celebrity, and it shouldn't take a baby dying, to get people to act as a community to protect themselves and others.
...
I will climb off my soapbox now.
You know me, you know I don't get up there often.
But damn it.
My friend's baby died.
And someone bloody well needs to say something to make sure her voice is not lost in the low roar of everyday life.
Someone needs to dwell on the final words Toni said in tonight's interview, after footage showed them planting a tree for Dana on the day she should have been christened.
She said:
'I feel anger when I look at that tree.
I didn't want a tree.
I just wanted my little girl.'
