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.

I totally agree, Chickenpox is a minor illness for most children but it can rarely cause a serious pneumonitis (Lung infection) particularly in people who are immunosuppressed.

Seriously? Vaccination is a choice and CP is not life threatening and often mild, it can be nasty for a few and uncomfortable but manageable, it is also short lived and only contageous while the spots are open, once scabbed over they are no longer considered contagious. When I was a child we were taken to CP parties to get it over with.
It was inconsiderate of the parents of the child, who should have informed other parents and ensured he was not in close contact with others unless he was scabbed over fully.
To the OP, worst things happen, i feel for your son, he sounds like a lovely sensitive boy who just needs lots of reassurance that once at school all will be well and he will get the extra support he needs and I hope he has a super time at high school ;)

Some offer it; some don't, which is wrong.

www.nhs.uk/vaccinations/chickenpox-vaccine/

Oh I'd be fuming too op. What selfish idiots.

If it helps, in terms of friendships, I found with both my dc, the kids they hung out with in the first week or so didn't end up being their longer term school friends. It generally takes a bit longer to discover who they really gel with.

@StolenChanel I didn't know there was a chicken pox vaccine either...I just assumed getting chicken pox was a part of growing up and it's better to get it in childhood than adulthood...saw a previous post about pox parties. Never been to one myself but heard it is a thing for parents to just get it over with. I had it when I was 8 I think (photographic evidence somewhere at my mum's house) - calamine lotion to the rescue! Heard there are other creams and foam treatments to use these days though.

OP, yes, it does suck but, as others have said, better he has it now than later on in his education when he'll have exams. He'll make friends and catch up in school I'm sure.

I think not mentioning his issues with the vaccine in the first post has just brought on a barrage of posts saying you should have vaccinated him!

FWIW I am absolutely NOT an anti-vaxxer, but I wouldn't pay for the chickenpox vaccine, maybe unless my kids hadn't had it by high school age. It would be extremely silly and dangerous to not vaccinate against polio, measles, etc. but chickenpox isn't life-threatening and to be honest, I'm glad I caught it as a child and got it out the way.

YANBU. There will be others in a similar situation to you or immuno compromised. They were completely selfish and thoughtless.

Best wishes and good luck for the school start. It sounds like he has a good form tutor who will ease the situation.

Going away so close to the start of term is always going to come with risks.

I would be annoyed that my child was going to potentially have to have the start of term off but it’s one of the issues when moving with kids.
I know a few have D&V at the moment.

It sounds like the child wasn’t contagious when your son was in contact with him and so he should be fine.
Or that they didn’t realise he had them until he was already not contagious, which you can’t blame them for.

Fingers crossed your son doesn’t get them right now but I would try and expose him to them soon, as the older he gets the riskier it will be for him.

He's still a kid, chicken pox won't kill him. I had it at 3 and still have scars from scratching. Get him some calamine lotion and get over it.

The only reason that it's not a standard vaccination in the UK is because the NHS has decided it's cheaper to just let everyone catch it as children as it's rarely severe in children. You must have known he would eventually catch it as it's a very common illness and almost everyone who isn't vaccinated gets it. If you weren't planning on vaccinating him (which I assume not because you would have done it 10 years ago) they've done you and him a huge favour. It's often serious in adults.

'It kills a lot more than you first think'

Just to put this into context, it's about 10 people a year in England and Wales. 10 very tragic events, but I don't think it meets the criteria of 'a lot more than you first think'. There's no need for anyone to be panicked about chicken pox.

There are around 4 to 5 deaths a year in the under 9s from chickenpox (compared to say Covid at 1 to 2). Chickenpox amongst under. 9s also leads to higher rates of hospitalisation, my DS when aged 3 was hospitalised.

Fortunately we have moved on since the 1980s and the barbaric practices of deliberately trying to infect young children. Today most parents choose to have their children vaccinated against chickenpox in line with most other developed countries.

I am very, very pro-vaccination. I'm not irresponsible when it comes to these things, and opted to pay for the Meningitis B vaccine for which DC was born (just) too early to qualify.

But in the case of chickenpox, we took the long-considered and informed decision not to vaccinate our DC. This is because this inoculation does not offer lifelong protection. It could, therefore, simply be a postponement rather than a prevention of the disease and generally the later people catch it, the nastier it can be.

Of course all diseases can be dangerous to a small number of people. That was part of the risk vs. benefits decision we had to weigh up.

Like most children, DC had a mild case of it early on and was fine. Theoretically it can be caught twice but the second instance is generally much less severe.

IMO, you made the right choice not to vaccinate on this occasion, and the smug posters informing you this is what you 'should' have done are hardly helpful considering that ship has already sailed.

Hope your DC is soon recovered and makes a smooth transition into secondary school.

The chicken pox vaccine costs £150 in boots which is a lot of money to many of us.

This is the only response you should read OP.

I had no idea there was a CP vaccine, it's never been mentioned to me by any healthcare professional, ever. I could easily afford one but that's immaterial.

You can all say “you can get the vaccine at Boots” but I live in a major city and couldn’t get it, the appointments kept getting cancelled and I eventually gave up

Maybe worldwide but not in the UK. Many people aren't even aware there is a vaccine and some won't pay £150 for the two doses. Many more argue it's unnecessary because it's usually mild, which I don't understand because even if your child isn't one of the unlucky few who are hospitalised or die, it's still uncomfortable and involves missing school and work for parents.

Good grief Mumsnet really can be a pit of vipers!

I'm so sorry for your poor son, OP. Hope he isn't suffering too badly. I'm sure missing his first week feels like the end of the world right now, but he'll slot in just fine. At my old school he would probably even have been assigned someone in his form group to help him find his way around when he starts, although who knows if they'll think to do that. Either way, he'll be ok, it's such early days, the other kids won't all have settled by the time he joins them.

Totally understand your frustration at the other boys parents, some people are just incredibly selfish and or stupid.

I didn't know there was one either.

It's a bit selfish of the other family, but it's chickenpox not bubonic plague. Every kid gets it, it's usually relatively mild in kids. It's bad timing but not the end of the world.

Sorry OP, chickenpox is so unpleasant (although I think it's better to have as a child than an adult).

Easier said than done, but DC should avoid scratching (I have a scar from when I had it thirty years ago). It might be worth getting hydrocolloid patches for any spots on the face.

@Crunchymum
Can you get chickenpox more than once?12345

• It is possible, but very unusual.
• Susceptibility to getting chickenpox twice depends on factors such as age at first infection, severity of the initial case, and immune system strength.
• Vaccination can help prevent chickenpox.

I do not know anyone who genuinely had it more than once .

Oh dear, OP - that's bad luck.

I used to want to hunt down people like dogs if they 'gave' me or my family their nasty bugs! Very silly and I'm not being serious, but I understand the impulse. Grrr!

But it's one thing to catch something which the other person doesn't know they've got - and quite another to knowingly be around someone when you've got an illness...particularly tummy things. I can put up with a cold.

As I say I really don't think the "first" time was CP. But that's what the GP said.

2nd and 3rd time were the "same" outbreak to me. She had a few spots / showed symptoms but then appeared better after a few days. Her sibling then got quite a typical dose of CP.... And then as he recovered DC2 came up with a load more spots and had what I'd consider consider 'normal CP'. That was a fun summer!!

They did him a favour. I had chickenpox as an adult and it was horrific.

I had it twice. Once from a chickenpox party as a young child, once as an adult.