Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Chicken Pox Emergency

Just when we were slipping into the regular school routine, life throws us a curve ball . . . Bubba (aka 10 year old DD#2) was diagnosed with chicken pox yesterday. Needless to say, I was flabbergasted.

You see, I had my kids immunized against chicken pox. Hubby never had it as a child (he had the test 11 years ago and he had no immunity) and since he is a world traveler for his job, we knew that he was at risk. So the whole family has been dutifully injected with weakened strains of the Varicella Virus. However, I missed the fact that this is a 2 shot immunization and Bubba hadn't had her second shot.

Compound that mistake with the fact that Hubby is also on immunosuppressive drug therapy for
Crohn's disease . . . and scheduled to go to India in a few weeks, right around the time he would fall ill if he contracts chicken pox . . . and cannot have the varicella vaccine anymore because of the Crohn's issues . . . and we cannot find his immunication records from 11 years ago to verify that he had both shots . . . well, you can see our panicky state of mind around here.

So what is a fiber artist to do?

Start a new project for the poor, scabby 10 year old who is quarantined to one room in the house for the next week or so. Besides sterilize the entire house, that is.

(The fact that I am casting on a new project before finishing Dancing Diva's new sweater has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I'm deadly bored knitting plain black stockinette. I'm just being a good mommy and catering to the needs of my poor, itchy, twitchy, widdle Bubbakins. Really!)

7 comments:

Kellie-Ann said...

Praying for Bubba and I too am sick of a straight black knit in the round sweater I have been working on for my daughter. I am almost to the armpits from the bottom. She wanted it very long.

livnletlrn said...

Oh noooooo! C. pox wasn't such a bad thing here (we're anti-vaxers, in general, so we actually sought out the pox), so hopefully that's the case for Bubba too, but I especially feel for dh and his majorly disrupted plans!

BTW, no fair teasing us like that w/ a purty yarn pic and not even an inkling of the intended project. Boo hiss, you tease. ;-)

Betsy said...

Oatmeal bath...there's one you can get at the drugstore...I forget the brand name...VERY soothing on those itchies!

Both my kids had it years ago...one has gotten it three times since (don't tell HER that you can't get it again...she gets a wee bit hostile)...

Gail said...

I'll have your dh in thoughts and prayers about this. My dh has a compromised immune system, and it makes simple childhood diseases ... exciting.

On the bright side, Bubba should have full lifetime immunity now -- I seem to recall that the vax isn't a lifetime one, so the rest of the family will have to re-vax on a regular basis anyway.

Anonymous said...

Prayers for health at your house. I, too, am on an immunosuppressant for Crohn's.

Rani said...

Well. The silver lining - now she can't get shingles.

Sorry to hear that and thanks for the heads up - I've been hearing that we're supposed to get our 10-12 year olds revaccinated.

Guinifer said...

What year was that vaccine introduced anyway? I waited ten years to have Ten vaccinated.