My name's Branden Hall. I'm a five-time Paralympic swimmer. I live on the Sunshine Coast with my wonderful family.
My journey in going to the Paralympics, none of that would have happened if I didn't get chickenpox, but also none of it would have happened in the 1st place if I was vaccinated.
So if I was protected, you know, I'd still have two legs, I'd still have full hearing and who knows where I'd be and what I'd be doing, but you know, I wouldn't have put my family through living hell to be here today.
So in December 1999, I contracted chicken pox and everyone just thinks it's the run-of-the-mill thing. But unfortunately, I suffered some pretty severe complications. I had a DVT, which is a deep vein thrombosis to my lower right limb. And as the doctors, were trying to get rid of that, unfortunately, they were unable to and I was in cardiac arrest for quite a while.
So they gave my parents the option as to whether to keep trying to get rid of a clot or we can amputate his leg and hopefully he'll have a long happy life.
Thankfully mum and Dad made the right decision and I'm really grateful that they did and I've managed to have a long happy life since.
Sometimes a little bit of good does come from the bad and it kind of shaped me into the person I became.
I think as a parent now, the thing that's most important to you is wanting to be able to protect your children, and thankfully we have access to these immunisations that can offer that protection to our kids.
If I'm ever talking to parents who are considering whether to get their child immunised or not, I just sort of share my personal story and experiences and the impact that it had on my family because immunisation means protection to me.