I held off on this vaccine for a long time, hoping my kids would just catch it the usual way and be done with developing immunity the way most of us did.
Then they changed the requirements for school entry here, so my youngest got the shot for her kindergarten set of vaccines, and I went ahead and had the other kids get it.
Then, a few years later, we learned difficult child 1 had a serious autoimmune GI disorder and he had to go on medications to suppress his "overactive" immune system so it would stop attacking his gut. I can't remember why, but during one of his usual blood draws, I asked to have his titers checked and found out that he DID NOT have chicken pox immunity. So now it IS a big deal for him because he cannot have the vaccine while on this immunesuppressant medication (it's a live virus vaccine), and if he were to contract the virus, he'd likely have to be hospitalized.
We'll probably never know why the vaccine didn't work for him in the first place. I guess our situation is kind of unusual, because who knew he'd get this autoimmune disease in the first place? I wish now, though, that the vaccine had worked for him so we wouldn't have to worry so much about outbreaks at school.
