My little princess has the chicken pox. And no, we didn't get her the vaccine when she was 1. Our pediatrician at the time advised against it believing that the actual disease would provide better immunity than a vaccine with uncertain effectiveness.
Little miss broke out in the red bumps Monday, after scaring her mother Sunday into thinking she had the MRSA virus. That would definitely be bad. When I tried to make an appointment at the new pediatrician's office (long story), I got a "Um, you;ll have to wait in your car and have the doctor come to see her there. We can't have her coming into the office if she has the chicken pox."
Ok, this is the first time I'm wondering how effective the vaccine is if we're quarantined away from the doctor's office. If we had the flu... no big deal. Come on in and cough on all of us. But the chicken pox? Nope, stay away.
The doctor couldn't determine for certain if she had the pox. It looked like it could be, but it was not a classic case. Since we thought she'd already had a mild case of it once before, perhaps this was something different. I was a little concerned about a spot on her head that looked like it might be getting infected but the doc wasn't worried. No. It's all good.
Then yesterday, after agreeing with OAO that the spot on her face really was getting worse, I tried to make another appointment, I got the same thing "Oh, you can't come in. Yes, the pox are uncomfortable." Ok, seriously. There's a couple that look like they could be getting infected... and some are in a very unfortunate location for the girl, can I make sure they're not infected? "Call back tomorrow and see if you can get a same day appointment. I'll have a nurse practitioner return your call."
My goodness. You'd think the poor girl had leprosy or something. I was able to find a pediatrician who would see my daughter. True, we had to go in via the back entrance so as not to infect the other patients, but at least we could get seen. The doctor agreed that the spot on her face was a little worrisome, but since it wasn't causing pain, we had nothing to worry about. And he gave us a prescription for antibiotics. The spot already looks much better. Yay.
And here's the kicker: the doctor hasn't seen chicken pox in years because of the vaccine. Ok, so if they're that good, why couldn't we walk through the front door? Reactions from people have ranged from "Oh, better to have it now before she's in school" to "Why didn't you get the vaccine" and then "My kids got the vaccine, and they still got horrible cases" and my favorite "My kids can't play with your kids even though one has had the chicken pox and the other has had the vaccine, because they might still get the chicken pox."
Even with the vaccine, the best time to get the chicken pox is when you're young. The older you are, the worse it is... so I hear.
Princess is doing a little better today. She had much more energy today than the last few, although, she is now resting comfortably on the couch taking in Ratatoulli for about the 4th time in 3 days. And since OAO is off tomorrow, we'll probably have a family TV day all snuggled up together watching the parade and eating turkey... just the 4 of us.
And despite the itchy bumps, I'm really looking forward to quiet time with my clan.
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