Holiday with chickenpox

[monkey117]

Hi, I'm wondering what everyone else would do in my situation as I am finding it so hard to make a decision. My family are due to go on holiday to Menorca next Monday. My 3 year old DD1 came down with chickenpox last Thursday so by Monday she will be on Day 12 since the rash started. We are currently on Day 7 and most of the spots seem to be scabbing over so I am hopeful that by next Monday she will no longer be contagious and safe to fly. I plan to go to the doctors this Friday to ask whether he can give us a 'safe to fly' letter just in case we experience any problems. However, I am assuming that it will be highly likely that DD2 (18 months old) has caught chickenpox from her sister and will currently be at the incubating stage. Therefore it is very likely that she will come out with the rash while we are on holiday, most likely during the first week of our 2 week holiday. I am finding it so difficult to make a decision as to whether we should try to cancel the holiday, however if my DD1 is no longer contagious and DD2 doesnt yet have chickenpox at the time of our flight then we may not get our holiday paid for by insurance if we cancel. But the thought of travelling abroad with my 18 month old highly likely to come out with chickenpox is also not very appealing! Any opinions would be greatly received as I am so stressed right now and dont know what to do for the best! Thank you.

lol at 13hr shifts my dp regularly works 30+hr shifts, nights, evenings, wkends etc,and yet i managed to stay in the house with my infectious children whilst he did that, and yes it was a pain but a day without milk, its not the end of the world.

I think we will constantly be going round in circles here, and I do not want to cause you any more upset mrsDV as I know this is a very sensitive issue for you. Despite my opinions on this thread, it doesn't mean I am selfish and inconsiderate. If I was selfish I would have just said 'I went out the shop, had a stroll about, even when DS was contagious, I didn't really give a toss if MrsX with a chest infection caught it, or Little Alfie who has cancer'. I'm afraid I had reason behind why I left the house, stated in previous posts. I kept DS away from nursery in those days (which also meant a weekend too) as it was fairly obvious he shouldn't be attending nursery and I also contacted a HV via phone as I didn't want to come into contact with anyone at the surgery deliberately.

But by going out that is exactly what you did. You showed you don't care about anything but your little unit rather than looking at the bigger picture.

how close in contact do you have to come with an infected person to spread it? ...... i do think people are being a bit harsh on lovechoc as she must have been desperate if she had to go to the shops, and it's not nice to be without food or milk when you've got young children :S

OP..as many others have said...if DC shows no signs of illness go!

DS was in contact with a girl who had leukemia the day before his spots came out. We bumped into them in tesco, they went off to play in one of those ride on machines for a few minutes. When the spots came out the next day I called them and the mother rang GOSH. She then had to rush up to GOSH the next day for her dd to have the varicella-zoster immune globulin. This was the 4th time this happened and thankfully she never caught cp. The Vzig only lasts for 3 weeks, so every know exposure they had to have another dose.

She wasnt desperate.
She has a partner who could have bought bread and milk home but she didnt want to put him out.
She wasnt without food.
SHe couldnt have toast.
Not the same thing.
Read the post by bruffin for a reason why CP is so dangerous

'there is not any clear guidance about it' - lovechoc, you linked to the very clear guidance earlier - the nhs states that people infected with cp should keep away from the public until they are no longer infectious, ie when the spots have all scabbed over. It is just that you chose to ignore that advice.

no need to get at me!!!

My point is that the OP doesn't know that her child has CP so she should just carry on as normal until it breaks out...obviously if she has a pregnant friend or the like coming round she would mention it!

Not wishing to add to the controversy but DD1 has had cp twice. Unfotunately I wasn't aware this was possible so 2nd time sat in GP's waiting before being told it was cp again (1st time round, I had notified receptionist prior to coming in and was let in the side entrance).

Who is getting at you!!!
Just pointing out that you were mistaken!

Oh my gosh, this sounds exactly like me a couple of years ago. We'd booked a long awaited break to Majorca also. DD2 came down with chickenpox and the time scale was about the same as yours. We got a fit to fly letter from the doctor but DD1 was still clear. We took the decision to go and to be honest I really wish we hadn't. The first day we got there DD1 came out on to the balcony with a bright red spot on her back. She ended up covered in them and was really poorly and had a miserable holiday in the heat. I also felt really bad as she would have passed the virus on to others on the plane on the way out. I had to cover her face with make up to get her on the plane on the way home. We did not enjoy our holiday at all as there is nothing worse than being abroad with a poorly child and with hindsight would not have gone. Sorry for your situation though, it seems as if something always happens when a holiday is booked doesn't it?

just wondering at what point i said CP wasn't dangerous?!

You said we were being hard on Lovechoc who must have been desperate!
we were not and she was not

well i'm not here to row with people! ..... bet the OP wasn't expecting this level of response!

No wonder the OP's vanished. I think some of the reactions on here have been rather extreme. Yes, there are some people who have a bad reaction to CP and there are people in the world who are immune supressed. Before any of you start on me I have experienced both within my immediate family - my entire childhood was spent jumping through hoops to avoid bringing home germs to my immune supressed brother. 2 of my children have had chicken pox, I didn't take either of them out of the house while they were spotty.

BUT the OP does not know that her child is going to catch it! Knowingly putting a child in contact with others when actually spotty is an entirely different scenario. Every time you leave the house you're exposed to germs, that doesn't mean you are going to get sick every time you go out. Isolating a healthy child or not putting her on a flight because she might get sick? Really?

If you read the thread properly you will see the 'extreme' reactions are not to the OP.
With your experience of the dangers of passing on diseases to immunosuppressed family members you will understand why so many of us are angered by people being so casual.

hazeyjane I am talking about the lay person not always knowing what to do when their child has CP!! Not about the guidance you read online. Yes it is there for anyone to see if they go out of their way to read it. Do you see plenty literature on it at the local health surgery? No. Is it widely discussed in public about the do's and don't's? No. I have also done a search on MN about 'chicken pox' and see there are many posts on this one topic.

And rather than having a pop at me, we should be focusing on the OP and her situation. Which is the whole point of the thread!

I think it you post stupid comments like your need for milk taking priority over the health of others you're fair game lovechoc. Fwiw the op and responses to the op have been fairly sensible and balanced. There has been some debste about how people judge the risk of a sibling exposed with some saying not worth the risk and others saying it is - almost all of those points have been made in a thoughtful, considered way.

Your comments about shift work and going to the park and other utter nonsense are what have riled people and when called on it you have desperately tried to find an ally of claim your words have been twisted when they are there for all to see. Perhaps you did not mean to come across as you have but your repeated insistence that you are right and everyone else who disagrees is wrong is annoying and rather rude.

You are the only person who has stated they took or would take a knowingly contagious child out in public. That is why you have been jumped on and I think you deserve it.

I agree the information and education about cp is poor. You have a point there, but to know about the risks to others and to take a contagious child out because you need milk is just shocking and really insensitive when juxtapositioned with posts by parents of children who are seriously ill because of chicken pox or whose child died. Can you see the issue now?

I said DS was probably contagious, not the same thing as he definitely was! He may have been contagious so there was no way of knowing! Like many others, you cannot live your life with 'what ifs' KatieMiddleton.

But KatieMiddleton, parents like mrsDV and windywendy are in the minority, otherwise we'd see CP info posted all over surgeries throughout the UK and worldwide about the dangers of taking out children with CP. It only affects such a small amount of people in the world, in comparison to many of the other childhood illnesses (German Measles springs to mind) it is not even seen as dangerous as others. You have to think in relative terms here. Yes, it must be truly awful to lose a child to CP but really, it is a very rare case indeed. That is my point through all my posts.

Many parents are not faced with these decisions until they have children themselves, and even when they do HVs or GPs certainly don't bang on about the dangers of CP or emphasise don't leave the house incase you infect others. It is more or less mentioned in passing if you happen to phone about it, not emphasised to the same scale as meningitis. There really is lack of education on CP.

I am not claiming to be right about everything! I am only giving my view, opinion, perspective on what I did in my own situation!

But the problem is you don't realise what you did was stupid, reckless and could have caused someone to get very very ill. Because you couldn't be bothered to wait for a cup of tea.

So lovechoc, have you ever heard of tesco or asda?

They are open from 8am monday to 10pm saturday, and a few hours on sunday. Is shift work still an excuse now?

Lovechoc I am going to quote you directly and I am going to bold the relevant bits. Then I want you to think about how that post may have been interpreted by others. I'm not going to quote your subsequent posts because I do not have the time:

I have heard of people staying indoors at all times with their DC whilst they have the chicken pox but let's face it, how realistic is this?? If you need food shopping you have to take them with you, you can't just expect them to be kept indoors when you need bread and milk, etc. Life isn't as straightforward as this.

Lovechoc I do think you are spot on about a lack of awareness but that doesn't mean it isn't an issue. It just means it's not a publicised issue. Personally I think education about cp should be better for all the reasons on this thread. Ignorance doesn't help anyone.

People are upset because you took out a child you said had cp to public places. Your other points are not being disregarded because of this but are not bring discussed as much because they're not hitting nerves.