As I was getting the girls ready for church this morning, I discovered a few suspicious spots on Malia. I freaked out immediately because I know for a fact they weren't there yesterday evening. I hoped that a bug had gotten to her last night but my suspicions were confirmed after closer examination of Malia's spots--she definitely has chicken pox!!!It turns out that I exposed Malia to the chicken pox because I had shingles. I thought that if she was going to get chicken pox they would have shown themselves at least a week ago. I didn't know that it takes 12-14 days for the chicken pox virus to incubate before showing up on the skin. I feel so stupid because I would have known how long chicken pox takes to incubate had I done all the research ahead of time.
Luckily, I haven't taken Malia to church for 2 weeks--Conference Sunday and the week before that because I thought Mayah had pink eye (turned out that she didn't have pink eye, she just had something in her eye) and I still had shingles--and of course I didn't take her to church today. Anyway, Malia hasn't really been in direct contact with other kids over the past two weeks. The handful of kids that she has been around were all old enough to have been vaccinated against chicken pox--I think.
I am sure everyone is asking why on earth I didn't finish vaccinating Malia. I am asking myself the same question.
The last set of vaccinations Malia received was when she was 9 months old. Soon after that, Mayah was diagnosed with autism. While I have never felt that Mayah's autism was caused by vaccinations, I personally know a lot of parents who swear that their children were neurotypical until they received a certain vaccination. Hearing these stories really scared me and I decided to wait on vaccinating Malia further. I fully intended on getting her vaccinations done by the time she was old enough to attend public school but I just wanted to spread them out a little. Unfortunately, my plan backfired and now my child has chicken pox.
Moral of the story: vaccinate your children.
Side note: As of mid-September, Mayah is fully vaccinated--so no worries there.
3 comments:
penny, DO NOT feel bad about not completing malia's vaccinations yet. if i were in your shoes, i would have waited too! you needed to hold off on vaccinating her until you were more informed and comfortable with it. i think that was a responsible decision to make.
i remember having chicken pox when i was little- maybe 4 or so. she will be fine, and it won't be a big deal.
but i hope that you and she can get all the rest you need to get better! i will call you tomorrow.
Ugh, so sorry about the pox! I hope that it turns out to be a small case, so she will be more comfortable. At least she won't have the horrific memories that I do from having mine! lol Ask me about the sometime, but try not to laugh too hard at me!
I remember when there wasn't a vaccine for chicken pox and if someone got it, the other kids who hadn't gotten it yet would come over so they could get it! It was usually milder the younger you were, so people wanted to get it early.
I'm sorry that Malia has them, I know it's not fun. But I know she'll be okay. Good luck with it though, it will be a rough little bit for you both!
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