Wednesday 20 January 2010

A pox on thee.

A curious infliction appeared on the palm of Jack's hand two days ago. First Helen and I thought that he'd pinched it on something at nursery. It was obviously quite sore and as the hours rolled by it got bigger and sorer. What started out as something resembling a pimple grew into something more like a boil. Jack started referring to it as his bad hand and would let anyone even look at it.

Yesterday afternoon Helen and I examined it again trying to work out what it might be and the possibility of trying to pop it some how. During this conversation we noticed a small red spot on Jack's face. This got the wheels turning and throughout the next 2 hours our suspicions were confirmed. Jack has contacted chicken pox.

Chicken pox is incredible to watch in action. I noticed the spot on Jack's face around 5pm, by 7pm he had approximately 20 across his face belly and pelvis, I took these pictures this morning around 8am.



Now, only 24 hours later Jack is more spot than boy. You can practically see them spreading.


It's a good thing that it's a relatively harmless disease because there's a good chance that Jack has possibly infected at least one of his friends (sorry Isabelle), probably some kids at Nursery, anyone he came in contact with while out on the town with his Nanny on Tuesday.

All in all Jack is in good spirits, though he's already scolded me for calling him Poxy-face and Chicken Nugget. He's lost his appetite a little but got no fever and they don't seem to itch very much. In fact it's only the one on his hand that seems to bother him at all and even that's minimal. This morning he burst though his Nanny's front door and said, "Nanny look at me I'm all poxy." so he's clearly come to terms with his affliction, or it might be to the doses of anti-histamine we've given him.

It's a shame that he's caught it so early in life. Now he won't get a week off school. I'm tempted to see if I can talk him into a game of connect the dots but I'm not sure it's a good idea.

1 comment:

  1. Sorry to hear about Jack's ailment. We Americans vaccinate against chicken pox now a days, so it's unlikely my girls will get to experience chicken pox. Reading about Jack reminds me of when I had Chicken Pox as a child. It's actually kinda feels like an "initiation" disease - if you've experienced "the pox" then you're in the club. So, welcome Jack, to the Pox Club.

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