One reason I didn't interact as much with friends at the wedding as I would've liked is that it's possible I was exposed to measles last week.<\/p>\n
It's unlikely that I was actually exposed. And I think<\/em> I had measles as a kid, so I think I'm immune. (But I didn't have the vaccine, and I don't know where my childhood medical records would be, so I'm not sure I had the disease. I'll be taking the test today to find out if I'm immune, but apparently the results may take five days to reach me.) And if I was infected, I think<\/em> it's unlikely that I would have been infectious only a few days later. (I gather that you become infectious around the onset of the fever, a week or two after being infected, but I was having a hard time getting reliable information on that; the nurses I was talking to kept telling me infected people are contagious before symptoms appear, but I think they meant the rash symptom specifically, which comes a few days after the fever.) And I gather that something like 95% of Americans have had either measles or the vaccine. So the chances of my infecting someone were extremely low.<\/p>\n And yet, spreading measles at a wedding really seemed like bad form. So, just to be sure, I warned everyone to stay well away from me, so the only people who I got to hug were people who were certain that they'd either had measles or had the vaccine.<\/p>\n If I had thought there was a significant chance of my having measles, I would've stayed home from the wedding. According to the CDC<\/a>, it's possible to catch measles by touching an infected surface, up to two hours after the surface's contact with the infected person. Yikes.<\/p>\n So I was being overcautious, and possibly being cautious in ways that wouldn't have been effective if caution had been needed. But I was having a hard time getting very much detailed information about various things, and I figured better to be overcautious than undercautious.<\/p>\n I especially stayed well clear of a pregnant friend. I was told in various contexts that pregnant women can't receive the vaccine, but I wasn't at all clear on whether it's more dangerous for a pregnant woman to be exposed if she's already immune than it would be for anyone else. I would think<\/em> that her immune system would protect the fetus, but I'm having a hard time finding information about that. Though I now see that it's very strongly implied on the CDC measles vaccine FAQ page<\/a>, under \"Why is MMR vaccine given after the first birthday?\"<\/p>\n Really, that was the most frustrating thing about all of this--my information sources were often incomplete, ambiguous, and\/or of uncertain reliability. The nurses I talked with could answer some of my specific questions, but for most of them they had to ask a doctor, and the particular doctor they were supposed to ask was unavailable, and anyway it was like playing Telephone--I would ask a question, they would take it to the doctor, they would call me back a while later and tell me what the doctor said, the answer would result in my having another more detailed question, repeat.<\/p>\n