Have discovered today that we were exposed to chickenpox on Weds, just two days before said child has burst out into pox, so presumably at his most infectious. Have just discovered tonight that the incubation period is 11 – 20 days (for some reason I thought a week) so that would take us nicely into all our next set of planned outings. 🙁 I know it’s just one of those things, and totally no blame attachs to the poor pre-spotty we met (none whatsoever Sarah!) but the timing stinks!
Big has had the pox before, and she had it well and good, so I doubt she’s at risk. But Small hasn’t, and while he’s still breastfeeding, I don’t know whether it’s at a level that will give him any additional immunity. Grr….so that’s a countdown for you all that I’m supposed to be meeting at London, that I might not be able to make it. I mean, what do I do? Do I now have to wait 21 days before deciding that Small isn’t going to spot up this time? Aargh….
Anyway, today has been pretty much OK. I’ve got through another day without shouting, although there has been the occasional voice raise and several quiet “if you don’t do x, then y will happen” moments. We started the day by going into Chesterfield for Small’s 8 month hearing test – if you don’t like to read rants, look away now…
I’m partially deaf. It wasn’t diagnosed til I went to school, I passed the distraction tests and so on. But I have very little hearing in my left ear. I got a hearing aid when I was 21 – it appears that my parents thought that it would somehow inhibit me to have one earlier, so didn’t tell me it was an option. (grr…aargh…as the buffy mutant would say). My children are thought to be at higher risk of hearing loss, so Big had the neonatal hearing test before it was common for all infants to have it, and then had her hearing monitored at the hospital rather than by the health visitors (who forgot this fact and called her in for a distraction test anyway…but that’s a different rant…) Small had to go into hospital twice to have his neonatal test done, as they couldn’t get both ears to work at the same time. And when we had that done, we got a letter saying that he’d get an appt at 8 months for a follow up check.
I was doing some filing last week, and came across the letter – and realised that he was somewhat older than 8 months, and we’d heard nothing. So I rang them to enquire, and was told that the audiologist who does our local clinic is off sick, so they hadn’t bothered to send out appts or even enquire as to whether we could get elsewhere! Mega-grr…now I think that Small can hear, but I’m well aware that hearing problems can be missed, as I’m a stonking example of that fact myself. So I wanted to get him checked out properly, and didn’t want the daft distraction test. So we got our appt and went today.
I’ll gloss over the waiting area with its broken and or dirty toys and floor littered with food scraps (although it was deeply horrid, and horridly unsuitable for the large number of small children waiting for tests). I won’t go into realms about the waiting for the audiologist with the completely incomprehensible accent. Suffice it to say that it was a distraction test, except that they couldn’t keep him distracted, so he’s got a call back for three months time. At that point they are planning on using a test designed for two year olds and up – they tried him on it today as he seemed to be nearly capable of it, but he didn’t want to play. Still looks like a variation on the distraction test though, and I know that there are better tests they could be using.
Anyway….rant over.
We spent the afternoon at Barbara’s which was extremely pleasant, popped into Morrisons to deal with cheques and so some essential shopping on the way home and by then it was tea, bath and bed time.
Tomorrow I’m going to continue my softly softly approach I hope, and also fit in a library visit and maybe excavate some more of the house.
Night all.
Comments
8 responses to “Aw hell…”
Yuk! The hospital waiting room sounds really crummy bleugh! Sorry to hear about all the cock ups, how frustrating.
Well done for sticking to your ‘calmer’ approach. I have transformed myself from the always shouty monster to the nice ‘calm’ mother angel, and the difference in the kids has been amazing.
Keep going!
It’s so difficult with the chicken pox thing, isn’t it? I was more than happy to have you round anyway, even though I knew, but how far do we string it out? Should I be warning people now, even though there’s no evidence yet that you have anything, and the chances are very slim, and even slimmer then that we have caught anything as you wouldn’t be contageous yet. Unless you picked it up from a few days ago anyway. Hmm. Where to draw the line? I guess I’ll be avoiding Merry (and other heavily pregnant or tiny little or otherwise vunerable people) for the next two weeks, but I don’t intend to quarrantine myself. I’ll be there in London. Oh crubs – just realised that I’m ‘on call’ for a friend who was due #2 last week. Can’t believe I didn’t think of that yesterday. Guess I’ll at least have to warn her.
Well done for another good day with the non-shouting. Sorry about the pox.
very bad news about the chickenpox – it is one of those things that you just can’t tell with though. I really hope Small’s bf immunity is still nice and strong, and that you can still make it down to Reading/London in a couple of weeks.
Well, Hannah was one of those kids who had an “extreme” reaction to chicken pox when she got them aged 2 (and still breastfed), so I don’t say this lightly. But with CP, I just feel it is “so” infectious, and it has such a long incubation period, that there is no point in fretting. Hannah was the first of her peer group to get them (though not the last lol), and had no known contacts beforehand. She was no longer immuno-suppressed, and there was no reason for her reaction to be so bad. While I wouldn’t deliberatly go kissing new babies if I knew I’d been in contact, I personally wouldn’t worry too much about the rest. Hannah presumably got her in a shop or something. So while I think there are illnesses you can reduce the risk of with fairly minor adjustments to normal life, I don’t think CP is one. Yuck to the hospital 🙁
And obviously, wouldn’t go breathing it over pg women either, but realistically loads youngish women, either have jobs with kids, or have kids of their own, so they must face it all the time anyway.
Well, 20 days would take you right to the day of the picnic, wouldn’t it? It would probably show up before then anyway. I’m happy for you to come here anyway 🙂 The only thing I’d be concerned about would be that we are going to see the Lion King on 20th October, but both lots of 20 days would be just about up by then, so we should be ok if you did have it!
Like Joyce said though, there’s so much of it around anyway, that whilst being sensible is admirable, you can’t really quarantine yourself for 3 weeks.
Hmm, well our suspected pox never came to anything here. When I was about 8wks pg with Teeny our neighbours dd came down with it. Once I had been tested to ensure my own childhood immunity was still in place (a fretful week that was!) I actively encouraged Monster to go and kiss and cuddle the pox ridden one, but he never got it. I know it can be quite serious but as both mine appear to have ox like constitutions I would quite welcome it during October when we have nothing major planned to disrupt!