I Don't Hate a Lot of Things But This is One:

I have always been one to immunize. I've never really thought twice about it. I know some people are so against it, some believe it increases the chances of autism or for whatever reason they choose not to ... they just don't do it. Brayden and Sydney have actually been given every needle one their age can get. Rabies, all the Hep's, typhoid, you name it they got it. When we moved out here to the Philippines and had no idea what to expect I took them to the local health unit and thought it would be better to be safe then sorry. Looking back now I probably wouldn't have been so cruel telling the nurse "yes I understand it will be 7 addition needles to their already schedules immunizations, let's do it." I would have maybe picked one or two but hey! Now they won't have to worry about doing any of those things later in life and they can travel the world and know they've got all the vaccinations needed. I really did them a favour because I remember getting mine, they won't remember theirs.

Madison is a different story. I don't do immunizations here in the Philippines. Maybe that sounds paranoid but if you have seen the hospitals and clinics here then you might agree with me. When we go home to visit I schedule immunizations then. Madison moved here when she was 2 months old, got needles the next time we went home including a half dose of chicken pox (which apparently is good for a little while) and then came back here for a year. She's quite behind! So with that being said she has never had her full proper chicken pox vaccination but guess what!? It's one less needle she needs now because we did chicken pox the old fashion way.

I know these are NOT attractive pictures of Madison but as cute as she is there was no way to make her look good. I started to notice it one day touring around in Thailand. She had a few red bumps on the back of neck and spreading up a bit onto her hairline. I thought a bug got into her bed and didn't think about it again until the next morning Ryan was bathing her and called me in. There were more red bumps, some on her tummy, the ones on the back of her neck and few on her back. We talked about maybe something living in her bed but Ryan mentioned chicken pox and it made sense. They all looked like these huge blisters. She didn't seem bothered by it at all but the next day they had really spread! There was no hiding them. Our last night in Thailand was a night train and it was like a scene from the Exorcism of Emily Rose. She was screaming, twitching out, back arched. We had to straddle her to pin her down and poured tylenol down her throat and smeared calamine lotion all over her body and 5 minutes later she was sleeping. Thankfully. We rented a hotel room for the day in Bangkok and she had a few extra naps and thankfully slept the flights back to Bacolod. She's fine now. Almost all the scabs are gone and she's back to her normal temperament. While talking to the doctor yesterday (finding out if she's still contagious or not) I learned that the incubation period can be 2-4 weeks so she got it before we left Thailand and probably from school since that's really the only place she's been. They start being contagious around 24-48 hours before blisters appear which is usually when a fever begins along with a runny nose and those flu like aches. When that last blister scabs over they aren't contagious anymore. I'm just happy it's over. Our poor little girl had them ALL over her scalp so I couldn't wash or brush her hair without her screaming, they were in her belly button, inside her ears and on her eyelids (well, just one eyelid). BUT, we all survived here at home as everyone who is reading this did before us! BOO to chicken pox.