So we finally called the pediatrician I've been planning on taking the girls to at some unspecified point, and she confirmed my friend's diagnosis.
What the crap? Shingles? Seriously? On my 3 and a half year old? I thought shingles was a stress-related illness?
Well, it is. Apparently when you have chickenpox, it stays in your system (that's why you never get it again), and attaches itself to a nerve. Whenever your body is stressed, if it affects that particular nerve, it can result in shingles showing up. That's why it's always just on one side of the body, usually in a sort of stripe from the front to the back. Shingles, itself, is not contagious--it's something your body does to itself. If, however, someone with shingles comes into contact with someone who hasn't had chicken pox or the chicken pox vaccine, they can pass on chicken pox (but only through fairly direct contact with the sores). So even though we were out and about for 3 days before we figured out what Janey has, the chances of her having passed it onto someone is pretty slim, since she mostly keeps to herself, and the majority of kids she hangs out with are vaccinated. Still, ugh.
Anyway, so if you'll recall, a little over a year ago, in July, Cailin got hit hard with the chicken pox. Shortly thereafter, Janey also came down with it, even though she'd already had her first chicken pox vaccination. Her case was extremely mild, only resulting in a handful of sores that healed in a few days. I thought we'd seen the last of the virus in our house.
(You can see Janey's original chicken pox on her face here--just a couple, very mild bumps).
Well, apparently, something is super stressful for Janey right now (preschool? hair cut? seriously? she's 3.5!), and it brought it on. She seems to feel fine, though perhaps slightly more tired than usual, but I feel terrible for her--I wish I knew what was so upsetting to her body that it reacted this way. Anyway, we're almost done with it--like the chicken pox, we're just waiting for scabs (my favorite kind of thing to wait for, haha), and I think we're getting close.
Mostly, I just hope this isn't a sign of things to come--I want my healthy girl back!
6 comments:
Shingles suck! (I've never had it, but I've known plenty of people with it.) Hopefully, she gets better soon.
Oh man, Jessie. I hope this winter (in sunny California) treats you better than those here in Utah. I feel like you guys have had the worst luck with sicknesses!! Good luck.
OH sad Jessie. Thanks for the info about shingles - I had no idea. I feel so informed now. Freaks me out that it could happen to ME! Sheesh. My BIL got it and said it was terrible.
Everytime I look at this post I want to cry. So wrong. Poor girl.
So, I have to tell you THANK YOU for what you said about The Time Traveler's Wife. I started that book (I had heard rave reviews about it) and got about 100 pages in, and couldn't STAND all the pornographic parts of the book. I even flipped through in the pages ahead to check and see if it continued throughout the whole book and sure enough, just by flipping I stumbled onto another scene. SHEESH - at that point I gave up. It was a hard choice too, because I was very interested in the book at that point, but I couldn't take all the nasty scenes anymore.
A lot of my friends have read it and said it was really good. I don't CARE how good the storyline is, that was just too sexually graphic. And I have never heard anyone else who's read the whole book tell me it was as bad as you did. They all kind of glossed over the fact that it was so explicit. I think they liked the story enough to ignore the crap and they were embarrassed by how bad it really was, so they didn't want to admit it. (At least I hope so.... if they didn't think it was THAT bad, then there is something wrong).
I have had shingles twice in the past year. Macy hadn't been vaccinated for chicken pox and she still didn't get chicken pox from me. So yeah that direct contact has to be Real direct.
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