chicken pox imminent

[Maybee]

Hi have booked flights to Holland for 10-13 April. DS3 has had chicken pox since Saturday. No signs yet with ds2 and ds1 has had them. How quickly will ds2 get the spots if he catches it? Should I just wait until the day before and then cancel (worse case scenario)? I'm a bit worried if he breaks out while we're away in case we can't go home as planned.
Any advice?

You can't predict, I'm afraid. Your DS3 will be infectious from a couple of days before the spots appeared until the last one dries up. Your other DSes could catch it at any stage, and the incubation period is up to three weeks.

I think you should cancel, I'm afraid. Even if your ds hasn't come out in the spots before you leave, he still could be incubating chicken pox, and if I recall correctly, before the spots come out is when it is the most contagious. So you could be taking a highly contagious child onto a plane, which is an enclosed environment, where other people would have no chance at all of escaping the germs your child was producing. Someone on that plane could be in the early stages of pregnancy, or could be immunocompromised, and if they caught chicken pox, the consequences could be terrible for them.

Unless the spots appear in the next couple of days which I'm hoping will happen. Chicken pox are ubiquitous here at the moment and ds3 was the least likely to get them as his brother ds2 is at preschool and he is at home with me. Is there a way of being sure that your child is contagious? Blood test? It seems a shame to cancel without knowing. As it is so close to holiday season there may well be lots of kids boarding planes and incubating chicken pox. Although I definitely wouldn't take a child on board if he was contagious.