A Pox on your Face!

When I was a little girl I had the misfortune of having the chicken pox twice. “How does that happen?” you ask.
Well, back in the dark ages before the internet and chicken pox inoculations you could get it more than once if you had it before you were a year old.

I also had this strange habit of coming down with “Serious” illnesses the last day of school. My timing has always been impeccable.

So my second bought of chicken pox came the first day of summer vacation as we were getting ready to drive to IN to visit My Favorite Aunt Gladys.
I came down with it in the middle of the night (because the only good time to get sick is between midnight and three a.m.). My mom took me to the Emergency Room where the ER doctor told her I had… bug bites. Probably bed bugs and she should change my sheets.

She wasn’t buying it. So we went to the regular doctor the next days where he informed her I had chicken pox and a couple of scars since I had been scratching (no one said ‘don’t scratch the bug bites’). My mom was none too pleased and it became an example of bad medicine throughout family history.

Now, I KNOW this blog isn’t about me but I wanted to give you some history before diving into our current Mud Puddle drama. I give you déjà vu: Chicken Pox style.

The MP has the softest most delicate skin and this time of year it gets dry and itchy (he stands around scratching between his legs and reminding me what he IS and IS NOT scratching). I stock up on the Aveeno and chase him around trying to put it on him.
Conversely, he is prone to heat rashes in the summer usually on the back of his neck. I tell you all of this so you understand when his skin acts up I am not quick to overreact.

Friday night I picked him up from daycare and he had a couple of red bumps on his face. No big deal, I thought maybe he had a little rash from the dry air and wind.

Saturday morning we get up and start getting ready, I have class he has gymnastics. And I notice his face now has around 10 red dots (acne looking) and there are three or so on his arm. NOW I go into worry mode because it looks suspiciously like chicken pox.

Scott gets on the internet and I call the Nurse and the internet says possibly pox and the Nurse says (apologetically) “I don’t know”. To complicate matters the MP has been vaccinated for Chicken Pox and so therefore should not get them and if he does it will only be a ‘slight’ case.

So I head off to class and we reconvene later on in the day.
There are more spots and the earlier ones have started to scab. Not to mention even though he insists he is ‘fine’ he has started to request wet paper towels to dab on his spots. But they don’t itch, he repeats over and over.

At this point no pediatrician’s office is open so that means a trip to the Emergency Room. I am willing to shell out the co-pay in order to get to the bottom of the rash/pox/scurvy that is plaguing his sweet face and arms (but nowhere else).

We wait for two hours – hooting and hollering and having a grand old time (Team G could have a party just about anywhere – we bring the fun with us).

The doctor comes in – gives him the once over. And asks me:“If it weren’t for the rash, would you think he was sick?”
I explain that while he had a fever earlier in the week, the MP will never let on he is not feeling well. He had strep throat that turned into the more serious Scarlett fever because he didn’t tell us his throat hurt.

The ER doctor complimented his stoicism and told me if he wasn’t acting sick I shouldn’t treat him like he was.

Then he asked if we had dogs because to him the spots looked like bug bites.
I swear if my mother had been there she would have been apoplectic. But what this told me was:
a. he probably has chicken pox but a muted post inoculation version but is no longer contagious this late in the game and
b. doctors are no better at diagnosing childhood scurvy today then they were 30 years ago.

And since he doesn’t officially have the chicken pox then he can go to school. Most of the spots were gone this morning and those that remained where scabby so I don’t really have a reason to keep him home. And he is “FINE” as he keeps reminding me with an eye roll and a sigh.

But if you read about a rampant outbreak of Chicken Pox (or bug bites) in our fair town you will know that it was the Typhoid Mud Puddle who caused it.

The Mud Puddle Lexicon

New entry:

Weboots – the squeaky sound your socks make in your boots.

He kept trying to get Scott and I to play it in Scrabble the other night – fairly certain he made it up on his own. It was definitely not in the Official Scrabble Dictionary.