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?

Varicella vaccination is pretty useless.

YABU. When DS had CP I kept him away from the public. One day I went to work and left him at PILs. Found out later that stupid MIL had taken him to the supermarket. An old lady approached her and said he shouldn't be out and that the old lady hadn't had CP before, so MIL replied 'well he has to eat'. which is a nonsense as FIL could have gone out to the shop. Not impressed with her, it's so selfish and stupid. :(

Tee, I have lost 7 babies. Not to CP, but if I had I would be incredibly angry at that loss, a pointless waste of human life, for what? You have to allow that if yu heard someone looking for a reason to tell themselves this is fine actually - when this action killed your child, I would suspect you would be pretty angry too. The same as with other posters who could literally be killed by ignorance of something like this.

We are talking life and death... not an issue of morality, not a phsycological effect on someone. DEATH, either of themselves, a loved one or an unborn child. You can not get more serious than that, and if you live that - or have lost someone to something like that then yes, the OP's post would have made them very angry indeed.

I agree with inertia about the vaccinations. CP can be incredibly serious as enough people on here have said. The fact that you don't know you've got it and are spreading it makes it even more of a nightmare. Kids are off for weeks, parents off work to look after them which could be crazy if you have more than one child and they get it one after another, foriegn holidays cancelled (trivial in some respects but expensive and disappointing).

I'd happily pay for the jabs if I had too...

Yes we all get it now.

The vaccinations aren't much good apparently? You can also get CP more than once.

Tee bully for you at being a 'happy' ill person! What a silly thing to say.

I'm wondering what sort of response anyone would expect on a thread about taking a 'pox ridden' child out in public, never mind one on AIBU!

It always goes like this as too many people just don't get how very serious it can be.

YABU.

I am sorry to hear about your sons cast I cant imagine how awful that is. You should keep him at home with pox anyway, but if you had to, a walk might not have been so bad. But not a bus! Its people who go out when infectious with something that cause outbreaks in the first place! My friend got married in 2005, and it turned out that one of the chefs had come down with norovirus, but rather than go home immediately, they stayed and prepared food. The entire 100+ wedding party and guests (myself included) came down with noro the next night. The bride and grooms honeymoon was ruined and some of the older guests ended up in hospital. I suppose what I am trying to say is that you need to put others first in these situations. I hope your son gets well soon :)

The chicken pox witch hunt. OP appreciates she shouldn't have done it. DS didn't touch anything on the EMPTY bus and chicken pox IS most infectious before any spots appear. We have no reason to believe he was coughing or sneezing or that any one touched his spots so the chances of contamination are pretty low. Shall we ignore these facts and just carry on chucking around opinions or shall we just cut out the middle man and burn her at the stake for making a mistake? Would I do the same? no? But that doesn't mean I can sling mud at her.

She has accepted she was daft, so maybe we could hitch our judgey pants out our arses and back off?

I'm fully aware of how serious it can be and have spent a frustrating ten days indoors with ds with it. However I'm also aware that he was contagious long before we realised he had it. In fact the spots appeared on his second day of primary school. So on his first day at school he passed it onto a couple of kids in his class. I felt shit for that but their parents were smart enough to know it wasn't on purpose and it's one of these things.

Because 'pretty low' doesn't mean entirely risk free.

And I could die. Unborn children could die.

So my 'judgey pants' will stay firmly in place until people realise their needs don't come before the lives of others.

HLL 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).

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Chickenpox/Pages/Prevention.aspx

I think you'll find that the NHS says you are infectious until the last spot scabs over Which may be five days after the first spot.

Please read the link.

Sharklet - that was German measles, not chicken pox.

veryworriedme, you have made an error of judgement but keeping things in perspective, you took your son who has chicken pox and cannot touch anything or actually even sit on the bus seats, for being in a cast from his waist down, on an empty bus for 1 stop it hardly makes you Attila the Hun. Reading the posts you'd think you took your son riddled with the plague on a tour of you local hospital wards.

Ok keep the pants on. Despite the OP saying she knows she was wrong. Compassion is such an underused emoticon here in Mumsnet. I would be at risk too but that doesn't give the right to judge.

That's your opinion. I don't particularly want to die, so I will judge.

As for compassion, where's your compassion to the lady who lost her child due to the lady whose child DIED because of her exposure to CP?

The OP made a mistake and she realises how much of one now. I think with a 2 year old in a body cast with chicken pox any of us could get something wrong. I hope it gets easier soon op.

What should you do with an older dc if a younger sibling has CP? Truely wondering D'S is 5 and DD is 7 D'S had chicken pox first and obv stayed off school. I couldn't keep DD off of school for 3+ weeks though, could I? I sent her in but warned school she could be infectious, they said that was part and parcel of being in school and wasn't worried.

Should I have done something differently?

DD thankfully had been off her prednisolone for 6 months but I was only told to alert the hospital if she came into contact while on it, not that she could die, should I have been given more info?

I can understand why people are so angry about the ignorance attached to cp. I genuinely did not think when we got on the bus that there was a risk of infecting anyone. Afterwards I wondered if that was right and from the very strong reaction it clearly was not. It would be very helpful to understand more about how the infection remains in the air. At the moment I have sent my dh off to work without allowing him to be in the same room as ds and with clean clothes that have not been anywhere near ds because if it is the case that the infection could remain in the air on a bus then surely it will settle on clothes etc? I have been very careful otherwise to keep both children away from others. I can see from other chicken pox threads that people generally think it is acceptable to take infectious children on the school run and some of the people who have posted here have taken their exposed child to nursery while the infectious sibling is at home. I would not do this as I would have thought that was a risk and so am finding it a bit confusing....

Lurking My compassion is not mutually exclusive to the OP. Silly comment really - as if anything I have said suggests I would lack compassion to anyone who has lost a child or pregnancies. [compassion emoticon]

YABU! However, I travel on public transport a lot, and when my DS had chicken pox, I had definitely travelled with him, before the spots showed up. Ok, it was before I knew he had chicken pox, but they are still infectious then. You never know if someone is 'brewing' chicken pox.
But, as you did know he was infectious then you were definitely being unreasonable.

I really am astounded at people who take pox ridden people out. I have no immune system and chicken pox could quite easily kill me. I can understand you and your child are bored but really Why would you even consider this ? As for the he who told someone to go for a walk she needs retraining sharpest. Chicken pox is airborne so it really does not matter if a child is in a pram with a cover on the pox can spread. So very selfish.

I know people come into unavoidable and accidental contact with contagious diseases all over the place, but you are deliberatley putting people at risk and I think that is totally unreasonable.

Given that adults with shingles can pass on chicken pox, how easy would it be for someone with shingles to get time off work, generally?

How much would MN judge a shingles-infested adult, who went to work?

I'd just like to raise awareness of shingles here, because few people seem to be aware of it.

I am aware of shingles. My Dad had it and had to take about 2 weeks off work IIRC.

He felt like death warmed up. I can't imagine if my dads case was anything to go by that many adults with shingles would just 'press on' and go to work.