to take out my dc who has the pox?

[sleeplessinseatle]

Obviously not to playgroups etc, but I've got a baby at home and don't think I can cope otherwise. Is there anywhere we can safely go where there won't be lots of kids/pregnant women?

My surgery tells you not to go down just to diagnose chicken pox. You are only to attend if your child has suspected complications. In which case you are meant to phone in advance and will be met at the door and taken to a seperate waiting room.

Well going to the doctor meant DS got a prescription for piriton to help the itching, which I would never have known otherwise. And he got it free (handy as I'm totally skint)

Apart from that though I kept him quarantined.

SGB "it is not reasonable for the majority to be seriously inconvenienced on the off-chance that they might come into contact with a member of that small group of at-risk people."

This sentence made me feel very angry. Some immunosupressed people will be so for life. There is a big difference between staying in the house for 5-7days and staying in isolation for life.

There is also a big difference between taking a child who is unknowingly incubating CP out and taking a child out whom you know to have CP.

There are ways round the lack of supplies problems other than internet shopping. Some independent pharmacies who would deliver some calpol in an emergency like that. Ask a neighbour, even if you don't know them that well. Even asking for help from a local mnetter may even help. MN is good for things like that. Luckily I have not been personally affected as badly as some posters but I have seen what it has done to others and I could not live with myself if I Knowingly put someone else at risk.

Thanks for the common sense xstitch - it's so easy to be unselfish/considerate and you might just be saving someone's life :)

Chicken pox vaccination would work not by providing immunity for everyone who has it but by reducing the incidence of the virus in the community. In that way it would protect exactly those on this thread who need that protection.
My dd3 had CP earlier this year. She came out with it on Tuesday night having been at nursery for two days when infectious. In those two days she managed to infect 25 children Goodness knows how many they infected in their circles. A further 11 children caught it at nursery from those cases - it moves so fast there is no way quarantine would work to contain it. The degree to which somebody such as the op stepping outside their house increases the risk already present in the community is minute. So it's down to individual conscience - and surely we can accept that we all have different internal barometers in that regard? It should be possible for this difference to exist without the anger that is on this thread. NOBODY on this thread has wanted to carry on as normal with a highly infectious child. EVERYBODY has wanted to modify their behaviour to some degree. It's not very edifying if we have to play competitive quarantine or risk being attacked as wishing children and adults harm. I am very sorry to read about the lives that CP has destroyed. SassySusan - I've read a lot of your posts about Catherine in particular and it is so awful that you lost her like that. I don't believe that there is anyone on this thread who isn't touched by that pain. I think this thread and others like it force posters in to confrontation and in to seeing exaggerated outlines of one another and then we start hurling brickbats. It's enough now - there is no evil intent here on any side.

Northernlurker The phrase that another bereaved mumsnetter used to describe some of the posters on this thread was "utter uuter fucking bastarding twunting twats'

A number of other bereaved mums agreed.

People affected by cp on this thread have lost pregnancies - (have you any idea what it is like to be told your baby is dead and then have to give birth to a dead baby?), and people (real human beings) have died from the consequences. How you can equate that with some twunt defending their need to go shopping for some bloody nappies, is quite frankly beyond me.

Susan - I'm disappointed that you take that view. My intention in posting was not to anger you further.

NL That may well be the case, and I don't doubt your motivation for a moment. However, when your children die, it does tend to niggle a bit, and therefore it is harder to just let things go when people say daft things.

Bereaved mothers do get fed up of being told, people are really being sympathetic or don't know what to say etc., when actually they are just being fantastically rude.

Dreadfully sorry to disapoint you.

Here we go again.

Shall I tell you my story (again). Sorry to those who have seen it before but if it makes a difference it might be worth it?

My DD was 12. She was dx with Leukemia. Chemo wiped her immune system. The fact she already had CP was irrelvent.

Her little brother was vaccinated so he could go to playgroup et.

I had to keep her in pretty much all the time. On the occasional good day she could get out for half an hour.
This went on for two years.

On a 'good day, we went out.

She got CP. She also relapsed. Because she had CP the doctors didnt realise she relapsed. She suffered agonising pain. Terrible, awful, unstoppable pain. I once spent three days and nights just holding her as she writhed and screamed. My brave girl who never complained.

They thought it was nerve pain caused by the virus.
It was actually the bone marrow expanding and pushing and torturing her little body.

She died a few months later.

CP didnt kill her although it could have, I know children who did die from it. But it caused undiscribable distress and delayed her chemotherapy.

So NO I dont take my contagious kids out in the street. There are thousands of vunerable people. Not just a few. Cancer patients, old people, people who are HIV+, people with any kind of immune problem, babies, pregnant women, children with chromasonal disabilities, people with all kinds of disabilities, people who only have a few good days a month, those good days taken away from them because someone cant bear to stay in with their kids for a few days.

Yes they are contagious before you know they have it but how is that an excuse for exposing people when you know they do?

Some poor kid who has spent the last three weeks in hospital finally gets to go home only to have to be rushed back for injections and monitoring because they bump into a spotty kid in the supermarket/park/bus etc.

Blimey - this thread is a bloody car crash :(

Yes, I agree knowingly taking a child out who has CP is hugely irresponsible. I wouldn't do it - largely because I have a couple of people in my life who are immuno-suppressed so I know the risks. I didn't know it could kill older children and I'm shocked that CP was the cause of your daughter's death SS. And so sorry for other people who have been affected.

However, in its very early stages it's impossible to know about. My DS infected his friend and he didn't get a spot until the following day (and that was only a tiny pimple). So I suspect a lot of the X infection is because people genuinely don't know their child has it.

I think there should be a lot more information about the risks - I think most people think it's just a bit of an annoying thing that kids get.

I'm not sorry that obnoxious opinions have been expressed on this thread such as SolidGoldBrass 'sue me then' because it's important that the considerate, sensible majority of people realise that, unlike them, a poisonous minority of people don't give a flying fck about anyone else. That hurts when your child is desperately sick / dying / dead or vulnerable. It hurts like fcking hell because it's UNNECESSARY for them to inflict their germs. I thought I was alone in my experiences of others being uncaring (1989 - pre-internet). Now I realise that they have become, if anything, worse. You wouldn't be human if you didn't wish for the concept of karma because some people really damn well deserve some sh*t to understand what it's like.

Fucking Amen, Mrs DeVere. You are so brave to tell this story, again. Lets hope that someone (anyone!) learns something from it.

Someone actually bought a child with CP onto the Oncology ward

I expect they didnt want them to miss out on the fun of visiting someone in hospital

The whole bloody ward had to be given the injection.

I wouldve liked to have stuck a bloody great needle in the arse of the arse who bought the child in.

thefirstmrsdevere I'm so sorry. I hadn't heard that part of your DD's story before. I suppose this is another exmaple of you forcing people to be confrontational, flaunting your dead daughter''s pain in front of them. No one deserves what we have been through.... I hope people feel humbled, but some how, the evidence seems to suggest not.

Albertcamus wrote:
You wouldn't be human if you didn't wish for the concept of karma because some people really damn well deserve some sh*t to understand what it's like.

Hmmm.... I am thinking about that one.

Can I just add, I rather resent the fact that despite the numerous horrid stuff said on this thread, I seem to be the only person who has had a post deleted. Surely there must be something wrong there?

Mrs Devere is right. There are lots of factors that can predispose you to CP complications.

Taking prednisolone is one of them. Prednisolone is used for exacerbations of asthma and COPD. The incidence of both is high in the UK. It is also used for rheumatoid arthritis.

Other medication for rheumatoid arthritis can affect the immune system such as methotrexate, sulfasalasine, etanercept etc. There are a lot of arthritis sufferers out there and a proportion of them will be on at least one of these medications. Some of these arthritis medications are also used for severe psoriasis.

Then there are all the people who are on chemotherapy for various different cancers.

All those who have had an organ transplant of some kind.

Those who have had a splenectomy are immunocompromised for life. This can be due to trauma or disease. Conditions such as sickle cell anaemia, thalassemia and gauchers disease can adversely affect the spleen.

There are many other conditions that can predispose a person to CP complications (too many to continue to list)

I would think a significant number of women are pregnant at any one time.

Starts to add up to quite a lot of people even before you include those foe whom there is no way to predict they will react badly.

Sorry about your losses to all those who have posted about your tragic experiences.

But Albert - we all go out of our homes when we'r infectious with something. That's how communities are and that's what life involves - going out and about whether totally 100% or not. Nobody does so intending they will infect somebody with their germs but logically sometimes it must happen. Is everybody then deserving of a karmic hammer - are we all selfish?

Sassy I think it's best if the posts are left for all to see, but I agree some of it is horrid and vile.
It's unbelievable how insensitive certain individuals can be.
It seems to me that some people are so insistent on 'winning' a discussion, that they forget to think how it would feel to be in another's shoes. It is possible to state an opinion, hear something tragic and then change your opinion. It is not necessary to stick to your guns when you can see how much distress you are causing, just to preserve your own ego.

Many people have (wrongly) wished ill upon another, for fairly minor occurences. Sassy says this wasn't her intention anyway, she was merely trying to spark a bit of empathy.

Sassy I'm sure many lurkers are as outraged as I am and I'm so sorry for the loss of Catherine.

NL - people aren't talking about leaving the house with a cold. This is people who know that they or their children have cp and have chosen to leave the house anyway. I said in my last post that I don't think people are really aware of the risks the present to others.

So more education is needed.

This thread is bollocks.

I am so sick of them.
They always turn out the same.
People try and inform people what its really like by sharing their stories. Not for sympathy but to try and get across just a tiny bit of what its like to lose a child or for their child to suffer or to loose a child before you even get the chance to meet them.

It doesnt matter how many people explain that it is not a tiny amount of people who could be affected. It doesnt matter how many people who explain how infectious this disease is and how devastating its consquences,

There are always those who dont want to hear.
What makes it so terrible is that they dont want to know mearly because it might force them to miss a few school runs or a trip to waitrose.

If I hear the 'should we all staaaaaarve' defence one more time I will fucking scream.

Starve? Are you joking? Are you so bloody unorganised that you leave your cupboards and freezer and fridge so bare that you cannot go a few days with out Sainsbury's?

You know what? Illness is part of childhood and as such is part of parenting. So if your kid gets CP you deal with it, stay in, watch Cbeebies, make cakes, make a den under the kitchen table.

You will survive.

Unlike our kids.

(applauds)

I'm waiting for people to come in now and apologise for talking shit further up the thread... I think that would be the right thing to do.

MrsDevere - I agree with you so much. Im still 'recovering' from the cycling helmet thread !! which was quite similar in its content.

Mrs Devere, I 100% agree that the thread is car crash viewing but try to remember that lots of lurkers will read it and think 'fuck me, I didn't know/think of that - I will revise my views accordingly'. Although no doubt fucking painful and frustrating, you Loudlass and Sassy will have changed the way that people think simply by contributing to this thread. I asked Sassy to step away earlier on as I was honestly worried that she would have a vile and very upsetting afternoon arguing with idiots who did not deserve her time or attention. All respect to her and you.

LadyB - education needed, definitely - but this is only useful to those who care about others - which luckily seems to be the majority

NL - I've been through lots of heavy sht in my life apart from my DS' leukaemia. When I was in a car crash @ 19 my sister, correctly, insisted that I must not poison my life with bitterness for the other two people who died, while I had survived. I understood this common sense, and have never allowed my life to be poisoned with bitterness. I'm a Beetle-driving peace n love hippychick with a loving caring job, with three wonderful grown DCs. However I have not forgotten the idiots who exposed my son to potential relapse through utter selfishness & ignorance. I have also not forgotten the arsehole ex-'friends' who suddenly gave us a wide berth once DS was diagnosed with non-infectious but probably fatal aplastic anaemia. I have not forgotten his first day of school at 5 when some dumbarse mother had informed her child that 'XXX is going to die'. I'm not bitter, I don't wish them any harm, I'm not going to do that to myself. However, I wish there was some way of re-programming their ignorant, selfish attitudes to understand others' vulnerability, pain & anger. I know this is a ramble, but I hope you understand what I'm saying :) ac

Well said Mrs devere.

I must apologise sassysusan. I couldn't read all your blog because of the tears. My heart goes out to you and all the other bereaved parents.