Chicken Pox Part II

In children who are not being treated with chemotherapy, chicken pox is not a major threat. However, for children on chemo with an impaired immune system, chicken pox can cause pneumonia or an inflamed brain. Therefore it is important both to manage the risk and prevent chicken pox from hitting the immune system.

Catherine went with her daddy to have her two injections today. She was very brave and came back with three stickers from the hospital. The chicken pox antibodies either help to relieve the severity of the virus or eliminate it. They only last for 28 days which means that if Catherine comes into contact with chicken pox again after 28 days, she will need to have another set of injections. If a child with an impaired immune system contracts chicken pox, they need to be in hospital for two weeks on anti-viral medications.

Sometimes when you see Catherine so well and active it is difficult to imagine that she is at any greater risk than any other child from something as simple as chicken pox. But she is at risk, and we have to live with this, and manage this, until she finishes her chemotherapy.