Dylan
A Whooping Cough Story

How would you describe Dylan? What was he like as a kid? 

Dylan was an athletic fifth grader who loved being outside. He was always moving around—running, swimming, biking, skateboarding. He did it all! 

Soccer was a huge part of his life. Dylan was a keeper, but in the final season before he got sick, his coach had him in the field more and more, where he controlled the game as a center midfielder. Dylan has asthma, so he was never a kid who could run for hours. However, in the championship game of that season, he never came off the field and scored the winning goal! 

I remember Dylan being super excited to join the elementary school basketball team. His coach made him a starter despite never having played on a “real” team before. 

How did Dylan become sick? What were his symptoms? 

In January 2019, Dylan woke up one morning with a cough. It wasn’t that unusual, since Dylan has struggled with chronic coughs and asthma ever since he had respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as an infant. This time, however, his cough sounded worse than usual. 

I kept him home from school that day and grew more concerned as the hours went by. Normally, even when he was at his sickest, he would have long spans of time without coughing. This cough, it seemed, was relentless. 

I thought it was just croup or something like that, which we had dealt with loads of times, but by the next day I was really worried. I took him to the doctor, where they said his illness was probably viral. We were told we should treat it with rest and fluids—the usual stuff. 

How did his illness progress?

By the second week, we knew this illness was something different. He woke up every morning and started coughing immediately. The only time he stopped coughing was when he was asleep. We’d been to the doctor a couple of times and were using inhalers, nebulizers, steroids, and antibiotics. Nothing was helping, and he couldn’t get any relief. 

It took an entire month before Dylan was diagnosed with pertussis, in part because he was vaccinated. Pertussis just wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Even after his diagnosis, there were many more trips to the doctor. On one particularly bad day, Dylan had to go to the emergency room. He was gasping for air because he couldn’t stop coughing long enough to breathe. 

How was Dylan’s recovery? 

Dylan coughed for a year. Pertussis destroys the lining of your lungs, and he kept relapsing, so the healing was very, very slow.  

Socially, it was tough. He never played basketball again. He missed most of that soccer season, too, which was hard because it was such a big part of his life. Once we were sure he wasn’t contagious anymore, we’d go and sit on the sidelines to watch if he felt up to it. But he often didn’t. 

Dylan missed much of the second half of 5th grade. He wasn’t old enough for a cell phone, so it was hard for him to keep up with friends. He hung out with me a lot and got used to being on his own. Then, when Dylan started middle school, he was the kid with the cough for the first few months. When the students went on a school camping trip, he had to go to the nurse each morning for nebulizer treatments. That’s hard on a kid. 

Just when Dylan was finally in the clear and his cough had stopped, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and he did the rest of 6th grade from home. He’d probably tell you that was fine by him—he was used to school from home already—but as a mom, that was hard to watch. Luckily by then, we’d given him his first phone, so he was able to stay in touch with friends. 

Dylan still has asthma and is prone to respiratory issues, but I think he’s healed pretty well from pertussis. Do I still flinch any time I hear him start to cough? Absolutely. And yet, I know how lucky we are. Dylan is now a healthy 17-year-old who is heading to college next fall to study molecular biology. 

Was Dylan vaccinated? 

Yes, Dylan had all of his childhood vaccinations. However, we now understand that he was lacking in some of his immune responses in general, so he might not have responded strongly to his previous doses of DTaP.  

Dylan caught pertussis five months before he was due for his Tdap booster. His illness was definitely an instance where community immunity would have helped him. Despite all our best efforts to keep him healthy, he was exposed to pertussis, and his body wasn’t equipped to fight it. 

What do you want others to know about pertussis that you didn’t realize until after his illness? 

I wouldn’t wish the hell that was our Pertussis Year on my worst enemy. No kid should have to go through that.

At one point, I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a pharmacist. She asked what medications Dylan was on, and as I started listing them off, her eyes got big. “That’s what my elderly patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are all on,” she said, referencing two of the inhalers. I’ll never forget that. 

What have you done up to this point to raise awareness about vaccine-preventable diseases? 

I’m a chronic over-sharer. Kinder people might call me a storyteller. Dylan’s journey was documented on Facebook and Instagram as we dealt with the diagnosis, treatment, and slow healing. I never shied away from the reality my kid was in and how hard it was on him, because I hoped that if people read his story, they’d vaccinate. I definitely had what I call “Soapbox Moments,” where I shouted into the internet ether about the value of vaccines, even before I knew enough to share anything more useful than our personal experience. 

Since coming to Vaccinate Your Family, I’ve learned so much about vaccine science and safety. It’s taken my own personal soapbox to the next level.