Friday, March 6, 2009

Pox! Yo, Mama

My children have the chickenpox. All three of them. This would be of little consequence, and in fact we had planned on it for our youngest, but the eldest two were vaccinated against the disease. “What!!!???,” you exclaim. Yes, this is true. And one of my vaccinated kids has it the worst.

I called the pediatrician’s office this morning to report in to the nurse and was informed that they are seeing more of this these days and are now giving boosters. At four years old. My two vaccinated kids are 10 and 8 and no one ever mentioned boosters to us.

Having the chickenpox is no problem and I’m actually relieved that now none of my children will ever get it again. I just wonder how many other parents like me who took it on good faith that their children would never get the chickenpox will find themselves with sick children. Or how many adults will realize only after breaking out in spots (and exposing everyone they've come in contact with for 2 days) that their immunity to a childhood disease was good only while the disease would have done little harm.

So if you have vaccinated your children (or was vaccinated yourself) check with your doctor about booster shots. Or do as we inadvertently did and lay the questions to rest by catching it.

4 comments:

sweetnika said...

I love you..
I thought we spoke about this though... because my eldest needs a booster or to be exposed... but not now... :) staying away... staying far far away....
bummer too, such a bummer, I would love to be sure they were immune... but... ce la vie
again
loving you...
from afar...
watch out for shingles... my brother had the pox BAD BAD BAD, and got shingles last year! eeek

Monica said...

No one has ever even mentioned a booster. I'll have to look into that!

Anonymous said...

I went to a Christian school in kindergarten, and the whole class started breaking out with the chicken pox... just about the time the teacher got around to teaching us all about the horrors of leprosy. Needless to say, it was quite traumatic.

Soon as I came down with leprosy, I mean chicken pox, mom put my sister in bed with me so we could get it over at the same time.

Dave Roller said...

(this is actually Amy) but I wonder if Lucy is "covered" because she got the vaccine, and then six months later, got chicken pox? Weird, huh?