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Nicole's story shows how vaccines protect us from more than we realise.

We all know that immunisation will protect our kids (and ourselves) from terrifying preventable diseases.

But for Nicole Feeney, the protection offered to her children by vaccinations extends even further.

'Is your son up to date with his immunisations?'

Nicole wrote to tell us her story, "whooping cough, polio, chickenpox, measles. All terrifying, preventable diseases. Their increasing prevalence in society today is one of the most convincing arguments for pro-vaccinators everywhere. But I have another argument to consider. A very different argument to most we see throughout the news or splashed across social media. It's something that happened to my family...something that validated the importance of vaccinations for me, and I tell this story every chance I get, to anyone who will listen."

Read more: Child of anti-vaxx parents spends babysitting money getting vaccinated.

Nicole says that she has always been pro-vaccination and that all three of her children are fully vaccinated. The thought of of her babies getting sick was simply too much for her to consider. Like all of us, she took every precaution she could to make sure they were as protected as possible.

But she could have never predicted this:

At about 4am one Monday morning, a local teenager broke into our car. He managed to get away with a few gold coins from our centre console before our barking dogs alerted my husband to his presence.

Unfortunately though, it was not what he would take, but rather what he would leave behind that would bring my world to an instantaneous crashing halt.

My son with special needs was around eight years old at the time. As part of his regular routine, he kept an old biscuit tin full of matchbox cars in our family car for his trips to and from school.

Unbeknowst to us, the young boy who broke into our car - in his haste to get away - dropped his filthy used syringe into my son's tin of cars.

Unfortunately my boy saw it before I did and - not knowing what it was but knowing it didn't belong in his tin - he picked it up by the sharp needle end and threw it out of the tin.

It took only one horrifying moment for me to realise what my beautiful innocent boy had just come into contact with.

I have never been so terrified in all my life. Amidst a million thoughts and as many emotions, I gathered my 'baby' and took him straight to the emergency department of our local hospital.

After a physical examination, a blood test, an agonising wait and finally a consult with the head of infectious diseases, I was told that - even though he would need to go through the appropriate testing process - the chances of my son contracting HIV were very slim, almost non-existent. However - the prospect of him contracting Hepatitis B was very real.

This disease lives outside the body, and is very easily contracted, I was told.

I could almost feel myself falling apart at the seams at that point. How could I let this happen? I was the mother who swept the playground with my foot before my children were allowed to play. How could this danger be so close to them and me not know it? As a parent I had failed. I hadn't done enough.

I suddenly felt dizzy, like I might pass out, when the doctor asked me one simple question.

'Is your son up to date with his immunisations?'

I quickly nodded that he was.

'Well then, we will test his blood to check his immunity, but he should be fine.'

I instantly felt relief, even more so when the blood tests confirmed that he was immune to Hepatitis B and had no chance of contracting it, whatsoever.

At that point I realised - I had done enough.

Have you ever experienced anything like this?