Karen Ohl: Childhood diseases were common, but they weren’t fun

When I was a child, everyone got measles, chicken pox and mumps, usually before age 12. It was an expected part of childhood. If a teenager got these diseases, other kids would actually laugh and tease them because they were “baby” diseases.

We were not kept in isolation, so we freely spread the disease. When I was in the second grade in Japan, I had chicken pox on Valentine’s Day. So a little boy from my class came to my house bringing me a sack of Valentines from the class. My mother sent him right into my bedroom, no worries about me being contagious. I was embarrassed at how I looked, so I threw the covers over me, talking to him from under the covers, which he found very funny.

Now young doctors (and young parents) have never seen these diseases or how miserable they are. And that may be one reason they are coming back.

This story was originally published January 30, 2015 at 10:10 AM with the headline "Karen Ohl: Childhood diseases were common, but they weren’t fun."