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The Pox

It's itchy. It's irritating. It's annoying...especially when it comes three months after the vaccine that was supposed to keep it from ever rearing its ugly head.

It's chicken pox. And leave it up to my kid to have weak immunity to it.

We're taking turns staying home with him, since he's a bag o' germs and infectious until his sores scab over. How disgusting is that? Anything that features pus-filled blister-like sores that must pop, ooze, and crust over before the sufferer can safely re-enter society without infecting others...well, it just can't be good.

My husband and I are whining about it a lot more than our kid is. He's playing and jabbering like there's nothing wrong, until we change his diaper, at which time he sticks his hands between his legs, grabs at his private parts which have bore the brunt of the pox, and pulls and tugs and kneads as though he were molding dough into intricately braided bread. He pokes. He scratches. He giggles. Can't be too painful.

Still, we feel bad for the guy. We're poking medicines down his throat three times a day. We're keeping him quarantined from the world and, more importantly, from his daycare buddies. He'll be out the rest of the week. We're all looking forward to Monday.

I'm a bit wary, though, of what may await us in the weeks and months ahead. If he gets a varicella vaccine for chicken pox at 15 months, then develops the childhood illness anyway three months later, what's next? Diptheria? Pertussis? Measles, Mumps, Rubella?

After all this, a plain old cold will seem heavenly.

Comments

Brianne said…
You know, I've always wondered why it is such a big deal to keep kids with chicken pox away from kids who haven't had it. Why not get it out of the way? Isn't it worse and sometimes deadly if you get it as an adult? Anyway, maybe I'm overlooking something but I always wondered about that.

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