Going on holiday with friends and one has chickenpox - what to do?

[donkey86]

DH, DD (18months) and I are due to go to Spain this coming Monday to Friday with a couple of friends who have a DD the same age. Three weeks ago their DD came down with chickenpox. Our DDs see each other quite often so I thought ours would get it too, but she’s been fine.

Friend’s DD has been over it for a while now. However, now my friend has caught it - even though she had it as a child. She started feeling unwell on Monday, got a rash on Wednesday, and had it diagnosed as chickenpox yesterday. DD and I last saw her on Sunday.

What do you think are the chances we all get to go and enjoy our holiday? I hope she can come, but if she and her family decide to stay home, I want to go anyway. (I hope that’s not callous!)

Problem is, DH (a worrier) is convinced DD will come down with it while we’re there and we won’t be allowed to fly home and will be stuck there. I don’t think that’s likely - what are the chances that DFriend was contagious last Sunday, three days before the rash?

Tell me DH is crazy for considering us all staying home just in case? And, if you’ve had chickenpox as an adult, do you think you’d have felt up to a holiday a few days after getting it?

Why wouldn't you be allowed to fly home?

There's a pretty good chance she was contagious, but if she is still contagious and she is allowed to fly out why does your dp think you won't get back if your DD catches it?

I hope you have good insurance!

To the posters up thread, presumably they won't get back if she catches it because you can't fly with an (obvious) infectious disease?

Drogo, if OPs child is incubating when they fly out and actively sick when it’s tome to come back they must not fly home and need to wait till dd is no longer contagious, getting stuck out there.

Your not allowed to fly with contiguous chicken pox. Your insurance will pay old for one adult to stay with a child with chicken pox until they are able to fly but they won’t pay out for someone who has been exposed to chicken pox but is showing no signs of it.

Can you take DD to get the vaccine today or tomorrow?

People must fly with contagious diseases they don't know they have all the time!

I don't think I'd mind if I got stuck on holiday though. Presumably the extra days would be covered by insurance.

I'd definitely look at how good your insurance is now and if needed upgrade it just incase she does get it but I'd still go

Good idea about the vaccine - though I see it needs two doses. If I was able to find somewhere doing it at short notice would the first dose still provide protection, do you know?

Herat of course, but that's different to flying with an infectious disease that you know you have, and that the flight operator know you have...

Would the vaccine work if she’d been exposed anyway ?

What’s wrong with being stuck out there for at extra week? I mean if she caught it home you’d have to take time off work anyway! Better on a beach.

They tend to be well in themselves.

Apparently the vaccine still works if you have it within 3-5 days of exposure. I got my DD vaccinated at Superdrug.

This happened to our friends in holiday, travel insurance paid for Drs visit, medication and 1parent to stay with poorly child (but not in the posh hotel they'd been staying in!) and new flights home once child was assessed as fit to fly by Dr.

I haven’t been able to get a vaccination appointment for DD, but I spoke to a pharmacist who said it’s fairly unlikely that she’ll catch it from a fairly brief exposure before DFriend had symptoms. So between that and the reassurance that travel insurance will cover us if she does get it, I’m less worried than I was. Now I just have to hope that DFriend scabs over and becomes non contagious quickly!

They are contagious for 1-2 days before spots appear so you should have missed that stage. Incubation period is 10-21 days but you're only contagious for 1-2 days before spots and until they crust over

My dsd came down with chicken pox while we were on holiday in Italy. The biggest problem was that we didn't realize that it was chicken pox (because her mum didn't tell us that she was exposed before we left). We thought the few spots that she had were mosquito bites and treated them as such. She ended up having scars from the pox on her face. If I had known I would have at least put a bandaid over them to keep her from scratching and scarring.

If it’s just been diagnosed yesterday it’s unlikely your friend will be able to travel on Sunday. Unless your DD is showing signs of illness you should be able to go, hopefully she’ll not get it on holiday. You don’t want that and your husband’s right about the difficult returning.