What A Week

If you follow me on any form of social media, you'll probably know that my little newborn P caught chickenpox, what a disaster. He's been through hell and back, being born early, having serious lung problems, suspected sepsis, and now this, I have no shame in admitting I was on the verge of crying when I noticed the first spot. Over 3 years a nursery nurse, I know a Chicken Pox spot when I see one and my god I was gutted. Nobody warns you about a newborn with chickenpox. Even though I asked everyone, pharmacists, doctors and even the good old wide web when I knew Patrick was exposed to the virus through Noah. And I was given the same answer over and over, 'He'll have your antibodies', 'Babies under 6 months are immune', excuse me? What a load of shit. He caught them the same way another other child does, and because you're contagious 14 days before any spots appear, it was fighting a lost battle trying to keep him from Noah.


So although Noah had around 50/100 spots, it was manageable and he didn't change too much behaviour wise and certainly showed no signs of being poorly from it. I naively expected the same for P. *Big finger wag* Wrongo. P suffered, and he suffered big time. Within 3 days he was covered from head to toe, and when I saw covered, I really mean it. Some of the pictures remind me of horror stories you read on the internet. So be aware that they are graphic, but I just want people to realise that babies can and do catch Chickenpox, so be very careful. There was also a scary moment, the morning we took the picture to the left, where I wondered if it could actually be Measels or god forbid Meningitis. I spoke to my ladies from the IRL channel who were as shocked as me at the state of him, so me and John decided to call 111 and get their advice, obviously I didn't want to take him to the doctors and risk infecting others with whatever he had. 111 were fabulous and arranged us an out of hours apt (this was Sunday) for within 50 minutes of my call - thank god for the NHS. And as we initially suspected, he did have the pox.

Over the next couple of days P really battled with his temperature, reaching 39 one night and fluttering between that and 36, we felt helpless, he couldn't get comfortable as he was clearly irritated by the itching sensation combined with his temperature soaring. Thankfully though, as time went on he improved, We're now over a week since the first spot and they're definitely beginning to scab, medicine has helped to keep his temp down as well as calamine lotion to keep them cool and dry them out. He's coped so well and I'm so proud of yet again, him showing us just how strong he is. It's horrendous when your children are poorly, but it's such a harder pill to swallow when they've already been through so much at just 12 weeks old. And the gutting thing is? Children who catch them under 1 are very likely to catch them again when they get older - sods law that he doesn't even get the one benefit you should have from catching them. As always with P though, he's proved he's made of stronger stuff and he's back to his jolly, happy self now thankfully.

Have your little ones had Chickenpox? How did they / you cope with it?