Fifth Disease

From somewhere, Luka picked up fifth disease...or the slapped cheek disease. It is mostly harmless but highly contagious so here we go with the rounds of illness again! His little cheeks or bright red. I thought that he was just wiping his snots on his cheek and they were getting chapped, but no! Well, at least he doesn't feel too bad--but he is getting annoyed with skin rashes! He said "spots, spots, spots like chicken pox!"

Here comes the bride and there runs the groom! Run, Run Alyosha! I heard the girl say that she was going to have the most perfect princess wedding that is so beautiful, EVER. And she is going to marry Tom, if Alyosha isn't Tom then she will just change his name to Tom--there you go. I think it is time we start training Alyosha which girls are acceptable and which ones are to be avoided!

Niki isn't worried about fifth disease, he is under the immune protection of Mama's Milk. It's funny that these little infants are so vulnerable yet they have such a veil of protection.

It's a good thing that Niki has some special protection, because with two brothers that love him as much as Alyosha and Luka do--there is no way to prevent germ sharing!

A chicken pox: Part 2

Exactly 14 days after Alyosha's chicken pox appeared--and right when we thought little Luka had super immunity--he broke out. He is super strong, but the virus has taken its opportunity to live on every part of his skin that it could find. Alyosha had about 70-80 spots all together, whereas Luka is probably holding about 200 spots from the tip top of the head to the point of his toe. It is like we timed the virus to come at just the right time--Luka shouldn't be contagious anymore after Wednesday, and if it was up to me, the baby would come on Wednesday!

Chicken Pox Upon Our House!

We rang in the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Ox, with the chicken pox. Saturday morning, the day we thought everyone was healthy for the first time in 2 weeks, we were dressing to go to the New Year festival when we noticed red spots all over Alyosha's body. The Pediatrician on call was sure from my description that Alyosha didn't have chicken pox because no kid gets the chicken pox anymore. His assurance wasn't because he listened to the description, it was because chicken pox has been wiped out by 95% in the United States since the vaccine has been mandatory in the early 1990's. He said that we were fine to go ahead to the festival because half of the kids there have viruses anyway and we would fit in just fine. So, off we went to enjoy the dragon dances and the new year of the ox.

Monday morning we decided to go have the spots checked out, but I had my first acupuncture appointment, so the boys went to the hospital on their own. It is so rare for kids to get the chicken pox nowadays, that when the first competent (ie. experienced) doctor saw them, the boys got put into the quarantine room and about 10 doctors who had never seen them before came in to see a real live case. Some thought that we were crazy parents wanting our kids to get sick with this deadly virus. Others wanted to take Luka and immunize him right away, or else they thought we would be admitting him into the hospital within a week for a case of 'sibling' chicken pox so bad he would never survive.

Roma didn't make the final decision until I got there and one of the pediatric professors (not a resident) talked to us again. I told her that we don't know where our future will bring us. Since it has been proven that the chicken pox vaccine needs a booster every so often, perhaps like a tetanus shot, I wanted the kids to have a natural immunity that will last a lifetime--like the rest of the world has. The Dr. Professor was open enough to understand where we were coming from and even agreed that the chicken pox aren't dangerous for healthy kids. We got our final diagnosis and left just as we came, only with a little more information.

Our complication was the little one still hiding from the viruses and crises of the world inside my tummy. It isn't good for a newborn to be exposed to the chicken pox. I totally believe in vaccines; I know that they have saved many lives. I am against unnecessary drugs, precautions and vaccines that prevent our bodies from being exposed to things that our bodies should be able to handle, even if it is difficult. If our body doesn't practice fighting things it is capable of fighting, it will not have the practice to fight the new illnesses we might not have vaccine for. God, genetics and evolution are pretty intelligent and the baby will be safe against the chicken pox because when I was 6 years old, I had the chicken pox which gave me a lifelong immunity (we tested my blood just to make sure) and newborns have all of the mother's immunities -- as long as they are 100% breast fed -- for the first 2-3 months of their lives.