Visit to the Pediatrician

First, Regina does not have any secondary infections, just plain old, bad chicken pox.  Thank you for your prayers.

Our pediatric practice has an emergency entrance for cases like chicken pox, where they whisk you off to an exam room that they won't use again that day till they sanitize it.  I guess this makes sense.  It seems that most of the population either vaccinates or wants their children to get chicken pox, but at a medical facility there are likely to be immune compromised people who need to be protected from it.   Still, they were quite zealous, as if we had leprosy.

Our regular doctor was booked so we saw a another doc in the practice.  I quickly realized that the nurses and the doctor were very young, they had to read the protocols from their computers and were a little unnerved about it all.  I'm guessing that between my seven children and all my years with children in special education, I have seen more cases of chicken pox than they had.  None of them were willing to call it chicken pox till the earnest young doctor found the obscure chicken pox code in his computer.  Up until then they kept pointedly referring to it as a 'rash'.  Anyone could see it was a full blown case of chicken pox, but I suppose they are cautious about a 'mom diagnosis'.

The doctor was worried about a couple of things and was talking about sending us on to a specialist.  Thankfully he asked our regular ped to step in for a consult.  Dr. A. is a well seasoned father of five, has logged many hours as a pediatrician and has spent much time in third world countries on medical missions.  He looked at her briefly, assured me that the illness just had to run it's course and there were no concerns that would require a specialist.  He was much more interested in talking with me about the great pro-life summit last weekend.  I pray Dr. A. doesn't retire for at least another 18 years!

For several reasons, explained well here at Children of God for Life, we have decided not to vaccinate the children against chicken pox.  Catholic medical ethicists have determined that we may use the chicken pox vaccine in good conscience if we decide it is important to safeguard our children from the disease.  In our case, our children are quite healthy.  There are no other conditions, like asthma,  or even allergies, that might complicate chicken pox.  (We hadn't been to the ped's office in nearly two years.) So we tell them chicken pox is a suffering we can offer up as a sacrifice to help end abortion.

Mercifully, all our children have gotten chicken pox at a fairly young age.  Regina is one of the last  (outside the womb) to contract it and the first that concerned me enough to  see the doctor about it.  I think we're on the upswing since everyone slept well last night.  Once again, I am grateful for any prayers you sent our way!

Comments

[Monique]

Thanks for providing the link! Looks like some great food for thought. I can't wait to have a few moments to go back and look at it. I enjoyed your posts about the chicken pox also. I would like to have my children exposed at some point.

[Kathy B in West Texas]

OH man! I remember those days (sort of)! I brought chicken pox home from Kindergarten (our 1965-66 Kindergarten was optional and private)and exposed one sister to it, then a few weeks later, my other sister, who was a baby at the time, got it. So, we had a good case of it, and that was BEFORE they even thought about shots for it!