The Mumps Are Coming - The Mumps Are Coming

The Vermont Department of Health wants Middlebury College students and staff to be vaccinated against the mumps after a student contracted the virus while traveling abroad.

It's the first confirmed case of mumps in four years.

Mumps, German and Red Measles & Chicken Pox - You just don't hear about them anymore. Back in the old days when someone in the house had one of these contagious diseases, when you drove by the house you would see a red card tacked to the house quarantining them. I thing that may have been one of the jobs of the health officer back then. German Measles were just a mild case of the measles, but the Red Measles, well that was another story. I am sure you have heard me tell about not getting out in public much when we lived on Fairfield Ridge. In one sense it was great, because we didn't catch much of anything, until one year, my two sisters and I all caught not just one, but all three of these so called childhood diseases within a six week period of time.

Now, if you have never had them, Mumps are swollen glands in your neck and very painful and feels like a real bad cramp in your neck. Red Measles are a rash and I remember spending most of the time in bed with the shades down as the light bothered me. Chicken Pox, well as I remember it, that is a bunch of itchy sores all over your body and being told, don't scratch them.

Aside from those 4 childhood diseases, there is another that most kids of my generation had and that was whooping cough. Its like a bad cold with a cough that has a Whoop to it. I think all of our kids had vaccinations for these diseases and you just don't hear about them now, but looks like some are sneaking back.