We received an all-school email that someone in the school has chickenpox. No big deal, just giving everyone a heads-up, right? Wrong. For a child that is not only immunosuppressed, but also cannot receive live vaccines, this is bad news. Scary news.
Since the first injection of what would lead a long line of drugs designed specifically to suppress Miss E's immune system, we have been told to be very careful of certain vaccines; chickenpox and measles being the worst. Know the trickiest part of that? Both the varicella vaccine for chickenpox and the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella are live vaccines, meaning they contain some of the active virus that they are trying to prevent. For healthy people this small amount of activated virus builds the immune system to develop a defense against those specific diseases, but for immunosuppressed folks, they can be dangerous.
For the past seven years, every time I have spoken with a teacher, church nursery, daycare center, ballet teacher, etc. with information they may need to know about Miss E's disease, I have always asked to be informed if any child presents with chickenpox. My theory is that if the risk is high enough that our medical professionals, who know how hyper-vigilant we are, feel the need to regularly reiterate the importance of avoiding these viruses, then it is clearly a high priority.
As I read the email from school today, I suddenly lost all track of the conversation I was having with my mom and went into problem-solving mode; as did she once I explained why I hadn't heard anything she said. This is the dialogue that I had with myself...and with my mom...although I'm not really sure that I was speaking out loud the whole time:
1. Who should I call first? I need to know the level of exposure that Miss E had to the sick child. I also need to know when the child became symptomatic so we know how long we have to get treatment before the time limit passes on it being effective.
2. I can't call anyone to discuss this right now because my kids are in the car with me and this may scare them, so...
3. Who should I email first? I'll follow up with a call when we get home. Don't worry, I wasn't driving at the time!
4. Should we home school the rest of the week, and if so...
5. I need to cancel meetings at work, or my mom might be able to cancel her flight home, which leads to an entirely different list of things for her to cancel and arrange.
As I write tonight, we have no resolution yet and all offices are closed. I have sent emails and left voicemails in hopes that tomorrow we can make the best decision with our doctors regarding how to proceed.
What I know are the risks of doing nothing, and they are significant. I also know that we have some options to lower those risks, but they require hospital time, come with their own risks, and cost as much as a car, so no doctor is going to prescribe them until we are sure they are necessary. Tonight we are in limbo...I do not do well in limbo.
In the meantime, and in lieu of being able to resolve the issue, we decided to get ice cream. Because ice cream solves a lot of problems, even if it doesn't seem like it on the surface.