To hunt down these bastards who exposed my son to chicken pox

[littleredbumblebee]

User name changed as outing

went on a caravan holiday last week for 5 nights and my son who is 11 played with some kids from other families and had a great time- all good

On the last night one of the smaller boys was running around with no shirt on and he has spots, one of the other families asked and his mum said oh he has chicken pox but we though getting away would do him good.

I told her my son had never had chicken pox and said I bloody hoped my son was not going to come down with them. One of the other parents also said they should not have brought the kid. Basically it ended up with them going inside the caravan in a huff. The next day we all left

So today the day before my son is use to start at high school he woke up covered in spots and now has chicken pox and won’t be in for his first week at high school. Tonight he is now crying saying he won’t name any friends now and he won’t know his way around and no amount of comforting will calm him down. Very few kids for his school are going to this high school and he is so upset he will have missed out on making friends.

We have been in touch with his form tutor who has been great and has said they will support him and catch him up but I could bloody scream. How can some people be so bloody selfish.

Not true.

If you get the recommended two doses of the vaccine, you have lifelong immunity.

As with any vaccine or virus exposure, immunity can wane slightly over time.

But to flatly state it's "not lifelong" and "wears off" - no, that is not true.

As a parent, you should be relieved in all honesty that he has caught it now. Shit timing but It can be incredibly serious if caught in adulthood without any pre-exposure as a child..I actually know of someone who died as a result of catching it later in life.

After the spots have scabbed over, you're no longer contagious. You are contagious 1-2 two days before the pocks appear, so it's likely the DS has infected others unwittingly, unless everyone he had contact with was vaccinated or had previously had the virus.

If you think £150 isn't that much (especially if it's for more than one child, I'd have to buy four in my case, totalling £600!) then you're totally out of touch.

Even finding £150 is a massive deal for most.
I'd have to seriously even consider £50 most weeks.

Some of you have totally forgotten what it's like to have young children, and some of you clearly aren't struggling.

They were wrong to do that. But also, why didn’t you vaccinate him?

OR- People with sick children could quarantine them to prevent other people's exposure. Chickenpox is a miserable illness, can leave scars, and of course leave you open to shingles. Which I've had twice.

Cancer patients or immuno-compromised people can have a very hard time of it, or aeven die, from being exposed to chickenpox. A second-grader at the school where I worked had to be home-schooled half of the year when her class had an epidemic because her dad had leukemia.

You can get chickenpox multiple times. DD1 had a mild case at 18 months, and a very bad episode in Kindergarten. When her sister began breaking out, I nearly lost my job. We had to hire a sitter to stay with them during the day. DD1 missed the last week of school. No graduation, no party, no cap and gown photo.
She is now early forties, and had shingles while pregnant 5 years ago. My youngest has lupus, and if she gets shingles it could be a very bad thing.

It was costly for us, and had lasting repercussions. It's absolutely infuriating that people knowingly compromise other people's lives, and reprehensible that the vacccine is not provided by the NHS. But hey, apparently some people like chickenpox so much they have parties.

If you get vaccinated and never get chicken pox then as an adult you will never get shingles.

Anyone who's had chickenpox may develop shingles. After you recover from chickenpox, the virus enters your nervous system and stays inactive for years. Sometimes the virus reactivates and travels along nerve pathways to your skin — producing shingles.

So -
Parents need to stay home with a sick child and potentially lose income from work. It could all be for naught because the child was contagious before the pocks appeared.

Theoretically, children should never be allowed out in spring or summer therefore.

The other family who could only afford a caravan holiday had to lose their deposit or possibly the full cost of their holiday depending on when they canceled.

CP can have horrible side effects on people older than 13, especially pregnant women and older people.

Gee, I wonder if there could be some simple way to avoid all the problems.

Read all her posts . She did get one .

So perhaps set money aside week by week beginning when your child is born and when your piggy bank reaches £150 you get him vaccinated?

To those saying “why didn’t you get the vaccine?????” - not all children can get the vaccine (mine is immunocompromised) and I rely on other people not being selfish arseholes exposing their contagious children to people who are vulnerable.

It’s not always as easy as “get the vaccine”.

I had the vaccine ( x2 as directed at the time)

I still caught it so best not presume she won't.

Sorry to hear about your DS missing the start of secondary school. First day for mine today and it’s been a big thing here for months, so I understand how unsettling it must be.

i think chicken pox is a weird one, because it’s not on the vaccine schedule and people have wildly varying approaches. Chicken pox was on my radar as I’d had it badly several times as I kid, and I had family members who suffered from shingles. I’d intended to get DS vaccinated but he caught it the summer before school at nursery. He had a very bad bout and scaring afterwards - can still see the silvery skin scars each summer as his skins tans: He was kept at home throughout even though I almost lost my job at the time juggling childcare. I think other parents have more of a laissez faire approach if they’ve not had children with severe outbreaks and/or logistics haven’t been an issue.

I’d like to see CP added to the vaccine schedule and treated more seriously by health professionals including more of a discourse in expectations when infectious.

hope your DS makes up for lost time soon.

Of course they are selfish. Beyond selfish.

Cp can kill. There is a poster on Mumsnet who lost their child to it.

There is no excuse for such ignorance.

Both my children were vaccinated on time and still got the chicken pox years later... vaccination helps just like contraception but it's not a 100%

The problem with actually infecting children with chicken pox is that you don't get it over with because many years later it can emerge as shingles which can, depending on the location, be absolutely awful. And it can come back more than once because you never really clear the virus and it lives in your body waiting for another chance to attack. Far better to be vaccinated and never get chicken pox in the first place which I personally remember as being very unpleasant as a child and I was lucky enough not to scar. (According to the specialist it's not so much scratching the spots that will make you scar but rather the depth of the spots.) I have had the very expensive anti-shingles vaccine and it doesn't have near the protectiveness of the chicken pox vaccine but I'd do anything to reduce the chances of an another attack of shingles.

We left it to late to vaccinate my eldest son because it started at his pre-school and he was infected before the vaccine took effect. He has had one attack of shingles in his teens. We managed to vaccinate the other one in time.

It was inconsiderate of those parents and certainly an inconvenient time to have chicken pox but at least it'll be over and done with.

I had my DD vaccinated againt it after she turned 1 and she still caught it badly about 6 months after. I felt so robbed!! Payed £150 to minimise disruption of life but yet she was full of blistering pox by day 7 and was down for at least 2 weeks.

so OP, yes its shit timing but better now than older when CP can be much worse. Hope he feels better soon.

@littleredbumblebee What is far more of a worry than chicken pox is shingles when he is older. The wretched virus will be forever in his body now, holed up in a nerve root.

Shingles is absolutely agonising.

NHS won't vaccinate the under 70's for it, either.

It's awful to see spotty children about- Chicken pox is very catching.

Hope your son feels better soon .

When does he start back OP? In our county it isn't until this Wednesday. He only has to isolate until there are no new pox forming and the scabs are healed. Baths with a stocking/tights filled with oats and epsom salts really help them heal up. Hopefully he won't need too long off.
He will settle in to school. It's not ideal but the other kids aren't just going to shut him out because he's a few days late. Just encourage him to put himself out there and he'll soon catch up

When my dd got them she had just a few spots on the Wednesday, covered head to toe by Thursday and tbh was about healing up by Friday and could probably have gotten away with going back to school. The Friday was her birthday though (yes also terrible timing for us!) so we were glad of the excuse to stay off. He might not have to stay off as long as you think though is my point.

It sucks and you're totally right to be pissed at the family but it is what it is. Not excusing this poor decision but he was going to get it eventually. It's a very contagious disease and people are most infectious before the spots even appear. Half my daughter's class had caught it within a few days of one kid having it.

I tried like mad to get my dd vaccinated when I realised it was going round her class. I couldn't find anywhere in her area that had any available so I don't think it's as easy to obtain as all that. I don't really get why you're being so berated for not vaccinating him. However, your situation has given me food for thought and I think if I had any more kids I would have it done if they hadn't had it by age 5. No point playing shouldawouldacoulda though you weren't to forsee him getting it at such an inconvenient time.

Aw op I can see how this
is so upsetting for your son. To add to it that it wasn't just bad luck but another parent being irresponsible makes it worse.

As others have said, I am sure he will be fine. It takes longer than the first week to find the kids he will really get along with. But I understand that he will be worrying.

Another positive is that him being year 7 you won't have to mix in the playground with bitchy Mum's as sadly seen on your thread. Some people are horrible.

Chickenpox parties were a thing in my day. A child would get it and parents of other kids would deliberately expose them to the virus so they would get it over with early and have the immunity. In the main, chickenpox is a mild disease and the vaccine isn’t on the schedule because it’s considered better for the child to develop a natural immunity, which for most is lifelong.

You can get the shingles vaccine the year you hit 65 now. And for those who have certain autoimmune diseases the vaccine is offered at age 50.

Oh ok I get it now-thanks for clarifying. That's really interesting, feel like I could go down a rabbit hole reading up on all this stuff!

The only reason it isn't covered on the NHS is cost cutting. Most developed countries vaccinate against chicken pox as a standard part of childhood vaccinations. Not only does it prevent rare but life threatening complications of chicken pox but also prevents shingles later in life. I was shocked to hear about children getting chicken pox in this day as a common occurrence, haven't heard of anyone getting it in my country for years and years. And all those children who contracted chicken pox now grow up with the risk of shingles hanging over their head.