There have been varying degrees of illness for the last six weeks.
Yes, six weeks.
As soon as one child recovered, another came down with something-or-other.
Then two weeks ago this happened:
Eddie started it
Eddie came to the breakfast table sporting a red, spotty number.
Chicken pox.
I incorrectly worked out that eight of the children hadn’t experienced chicken pox yet. Turned out the correct figure was ten.
We cancelled our plans for the following week in anticipation of a chicken pox epidemic.
Nothing happened.
Until yesterday when five children broke out at once. Here are how four of them looked by the evening:
Sid looks positively fed up beyond belief. Joseph is quite chuffed to have a few spots. Libby isn’t that bothered and Ollie is just too cool to care.
Until this morning…
By morning the number had risen to seven
Seven of them are now suffering. And yes, it’s really become an issue of sufferance now – that’s no exaggeration.
Sid is still unimpressed. What better way to deal with it than with a good book?
It took the best part of an hour and a whole packet of cotton wool to coat everyone with calamine lotion.
Libby has had enough
Not everybody was particularly keen on being smothered in the stuff.
Tim wasn’t a fan of the calamine
We did our best to explain it would help but some were too young to understand.
But he needed it.
The itching stopped just long enough for a little play. It lasted all of five minutes.
It seemed to subside the itching long enough for a little play
Although some did deal with it better than others…
Ollie’s still smiling!
And others, like Isobel, even better still…
Isobel’s spots have yet to break. She’s going to regret teasing her siblings soon!
…mainly because her spots have yet to break and she’s enjoying teasing her siblings!
Just two more to go and we’re done.
Get well soon, kids!
Bless them. I thought 3 at once was hard. Then we had the other two with them 3 years later. I found that sudocreme worked a million times better than the calamine lotion, especially on the more sore spots. Out of 5 kids we have only one with a chicken pox scar and that’s some where that won’t be seen by many (Oliver’s bottom )
But now we know! Thanks for the tip and hope you’re all well! xx
Get well soon Sullivan troops. Xx
Thanks, Vicky!
Oat baths were the only thing to settle my 4 and it worked wonders. They followed one another with it so we were quarantined for 6 weeks in all.
Someone else suggested that too! I think I’ll give it a go – thanks!
I ended up running a hot bath and adding a couple of handfuls of oatmeal loose in the water and leaving it to cool, rather than a bag. Then they would spend the whole day hopping in and as they wanted. My then 6 year old suffered the worst (spots in her mouth, on her eyes etc) and she got a couple of hours relief at least.
Good luck.
My youngest two have just had chicken pox one after the other my older 6 have already had them the older of the two didn’t handle it very well and is still picking the scabs on his head my youngest coped much better but then she is only 10 months
Glad your children are better. Hope they didn’t suffer with it too much, poor things x
Oh bless you all, what a shame so many have suffered at once. Hope they’re all feeling better soon xx
Bi carb in the bath and calamine cream rather than lotion helped my boys x
Thanks, Linda.
Poor them….and poor you! Hope it passes quickly. xxx
Thank you, Jean. Hopefully they’ll all be over the worst by the weekend.
Poor things – get well soon everyone xx
Bless them! We had hand foot and mouth recently…not fun xx
Oh goodness! You poor things! Hope everyone is better now xx
They are, thank you 🙂 love to your little ones xx
Oh my! Lots of get well soon for everyone. Love Tim’s hair.
Hi Tania the best think for the spots is to have a Luke warm bath fill a couple of handfuls of bicarbonate of soda. Relieves itching and helps to dry the spots out faster.
You can do it as often as you like just make sure you use generous handfuls in the wAter, not to much water too.
Sharon .xx
Hi meant to say Luke warm bath and couple of generous handfulls
Of bicarbonate soda .
Poor kiddies and poor you! I always thought it looks like a disease from the middle ages 🙁 My eldest 2 got it when #3 was a 9 week old baby, she only got 5 spots so I thought she had been lucky and that was it, but fast forward until she was 5 and had a strange rash on her back. I had no idea what it was, but eventually the Dr realized she had shingles (unusual for a 5 year old) – cue the other 3 younger children all went down with chicken pox. We had at least 3-4 weeks of 4 sick children and that was bad enough so I can’t imagine 10 children all becoming sick with it! I hope they all get better soon.
When I was nearly due with my youngest, #7 caught it and then I was waiting for #8 to break out. They told me that if there was a live chicken pox infection in the house, then I wouldn’t be able to bring my newborn home until it all cleared as it was far too dangerous for newborns. Luckily #8 was infected quickly after #7 and they both recovered in time, luckily as I had my daughter early.
Incidentally, my Dr gave me the generic version of Zovirax – Aciclovir cream to treat the shingles and chicken pox spots when we had 4 of them with it and it really helped – we didn’t have any major itching issues because of the cream so we never used the calamine lotion. I think we may have also given anti-histamine orally to help with it too.