To take my pox ridden ds on public transport

[veryworriedme]

am feeling a bit sorry for myself and my ds and so wonder if this has made me very selfish. My ds aged 2 has been in a hip spica cast from his chest to his ankles for the last month which has been tough. Now he has chicken pox. My dd has not yet come out in any spots but I kept her away from activities just in case she is infectious. However, I have taken my ds on the bus as it's about the only thing he can enjoy at the moment. This was in fact an empty bus and I would not have got on it if we could not have kept away from people or if there were children but the bus, but that's not really the point is it - there could be a pregnant woman for example. Is keeping him at home or just walking outside the only decent and responsible thing to do?

Lunar1, I do not think I am a horrible person. I took my desperately miserable ds who I suspect has chicken pox( not diagnosed as I thought it far too risky to take him to the gp) on an empty bus with the permission of the driver for one stop. I did that thinking that the infection was passed by direct contact or sneezing/coughing ( as advised by gp on phone). I felt anxious afterwards if that was a sensible thing to do, and what was and wasn't acceptable. I did that without thinking it through properly as I am so worn down by how unhappy my ds is. If it was just a question of selfishly entertaining a bored child then I would be taking my dd , who only recently is able to be out and about after spending most of her 9 months in and out of hospital, to things but I am not because I know there may be a risk she will be infectious in the future. I am a bit taken aback at the comment that I am risking the lives of others. I really did not think the infection would stay on a bus after you left ( assuming the infectious person did not touch anything). Is that not right? I posted this with a provocative title to make sure I did not underplay things and the replies( although I think some are unnecessarily unpleasant) have definitely made me more conscious of the risks involved. I would like to say more but having only just got ds to sleep dd is now waking.

Were you not advised to keep him at home too? Surely this is common sense anyway. It's passed through touch,airborne droplets,and infected items like bedding, clothes or BUS SEATS. It can infect up to NINETY PERCENT of people who come into contact with someone with it.

You can't plead ignorance, you should have at least looked into it.

For a person with a healthy immune system, it's unlikely that the infection would spread unless they'd spent about fifteen minutes in each other's company. For someone who is immunosuppressed or immunocompromised, they can pick up viruses or bacterial infections very quickly - and yes, from things that have been touched like bus poles and seats. The virus won't survive long on them, but long enough for someone in that situation (pregnant, undergoing chemo, elderly, etc) to pick it up.

Whitewidow. My ds was not on the bus seat. He is in a hip spica from his chest to ankle and can only lie flat. He cannot move. He did not touch anything. I would not have let him but he can't anyway. I did look into the gp advice but not until this thread have I heard that you can pass on infection without touching anything or actually being anywhere near someone.

nellyjelly I agree. The OP now gets it. She won't do it again. I really think that sometimes this place is just an excuse for people to get on their bloody high horses and look down on others while being utterly horrible about their choices.

Anyone pregnant, undergoing chemo or similar, I understand the fear and anxiety. The people coming on here just to call another mother who has sick children selfish and horrible, I hope you never make a stupid or bad choice and if you do, shower the same guilt, shame and revulsion on yourselves.

Have a fucking biscuit.

He's about 100 times less infectious with spots than he was in the days before they came out!

What Mrs Pratchett said. Chickenpox threads never end well.

Wheremommagone, yes I can see a bit unclear. The problem is that a large part of his body is in a cast and so it is not obvious. I only have the face, shoulders and arms to go by and they are not covered in spots but it is more than an insect could do and they have scabbed over quickly as cp does I think? Plus he vomited 9 times in 2 hrs at the beginning ( a nightmare as it went down his cast).

I get that the OP 'gets it' now. I'm in the relatively unusual position of having to know about things like this because I was immunocompromised. The minutia of how infections are passed on, potentially lingering for a few minutes on non-organic surfaces, etc, I wouldn't expect that to be common knowledge. My DS wasn't allowed to get the chickenpox vaccine while I was ill because it's live and there was a small risk I'd catch it from that - that is how easily some people can pick up infections, but again - not common knowledge.

However, you would think contagious illness = keep affected person away from others until recovered IS common knowledge and that is why I said the OP was BU.

I saw a woman with a little girl with chicken pox in the Co Op the other day, touching food....putting it back down...yuk! I left and went back in hours later!

Poor op is getting a hard time, hope your son recovers soon.

I often find that people's desire to stick the boot in on AIBU is grimmer then any O.P. I note the difference between people, often with personal experience of immunosupression, who've calmly explained why the OP was BU and those who've just come on to insult.

You were "desperate" so you took your infectious child on public transport? If you want to know what "desperate" feels like try having chicken pox as an adult (when it's generally far worse than for a child) and a lowered immune system. Try caring alone for a 6 and 7 year old when you can't move because you feel so weak, sick and wretched, try being so ill that when an sensible, non-hysterical adult visits you they attempt to persuade you to be taken into hospital.

That, OP, is how desperate I was. And the only place I'd knowingly encountered the virus was at the house of a child who wasn't even present when I visited. I've no idea if it might have been possible that I caught CP from that family but I do hope that his absence wasn't because his mother hadn't been selfish enough to take him on a bloody bus!

And fwiw, that little girl could've killed me!

Thank you again mrs pratchett, and lovelydogs. Nogoodnamesleft- your advice is helpful but I have not brought my ds into contact with anyone other than the bus driver ( with his permission) and nor has he touched anything and so I don't understand how he is able to infect anyone. Does it stay in the air somehow? If you walked down the street behind someone with chicken pox can you catch it? The point of my original post was to try and understand what was risky.

I see that and I do think you've had a hard time from some posters. Yes, it can be passed on through coughs, sneezes, etc (at least that's what my oncologist told me) but any virus doesn't live long at all in the air or on non-organic surfaces. That's why for a person with a decent immune system, it should take being around an infected person for at least 15 minutes for them to catch it. Obviously that will vary from person to person.

Chickenpox could have killed me too while I was undergoing chemo - but that's why I avoided crowded areas and public transport and on the occasions I didn't I accepted that it was at my own risk.

I could have picked up any infections, even from the usually harmless bacteria that live on all of us (which is why chemo patients are prone to getting oral thrush, incidentally! Yes, I'm weird and I'm fascinated by stuff like this. Don't get me started on parasites.).

For those moaning that it could have killed them, genuinely I'd like to know; what do you do to avoid catching OTHER infections? Surely if you're immunocompromised or suppressed, you accept that there's going to be a certain level of risk of you catching something if you're mixing with other people? Why is what the OP did any more risky than sitting next to someone who doesn't know they have chickenpox? I don't mean to be arsy, honestly, and I hope I'm not coming across like that.

DD has chicken pox and the GP told me not to take any specific measures other than keep her away from pregnant women or people who are otherwise vulnerable to it. Chicken pox is an extremely common disease, even if we're all 100% vigilant from the moment we find out we're likely to spread it before we even realise it's there. I'm not upset with whoever passed it to DD, and I've accepted that she may very well have passed it on as well. I don't think OP deserves this response, she was very careful.

As someone who got chicken pox as an adult from someone who decided that they were too bored to stay in with their chicken-pox ridden child, I wish I could explain to you how horrible it is to have chicken pox so badly that it coats your insides and you actually throw them up. You'd better believe I think what you did was horribly selfish.

As for how it could linger on the bus. He breaths out tiny droplets of virus and those droplets land on the surfaces around the bus.

When did he get his first spot? Many people don't realise that you only have to keep a child isolated for 5 days from first spot. You don't have to wait for them to scab over.

For this reason you will see many children out and about that 'look' as tho they are still infectious when they aren't (although sure there are many that are).

Wow- thanks to someone just like you- I caught CP. As a result I spent months in hospital. I was in horrific pain. I lost a full year of school-a big deal at 16yrs.
Luckily I survived in the end, however I have scars from head to toe and nerve damage in my face.

CP can be fatal. To call you stupid and selfish is an insult to the stupid and selfish IMO. Your childs body cast, while unfortunate is not relevant in the slightest.

Soooo glad to have had my life change forever because some fool was too ineffective to parent their child.

I am dumbfounded at the posters here who compare normal childhood cp infection with the complications that are not so rare! Are the same people so cool with measles/ rubella?.....Like it's not like it kills everyone...right?

Talk about I'm alright Jack!

I thought someone who has chicken pox was most infectious two weeks before the spots appeared and they weren't aware they even had it. That's why it spreads around so much. Once the spots scab over its no risk. You can catch it from anywhere you never know who has it don't just blame the people who already have the spots

Mmebucket and chunkythighs that sounds awful, but chicken pox is most infectious before the spots come out. You could have caught chicken pox from someone whose spots hadn't come out yet, who didn't know they had it, whose parents didn't know they had it. Maybe you infected someone before you knew you had it. Maybe that person died. Or lost their baby. It's not your fault though is it?

What the OP did was foolish, she made a mistake, she won't do it again.