How to treat Chicken Pox

Calamine lotion & bicarb baths are out!

We’ve all learnt something new about chicken pox this week, so I thought I’d share it in the hope that it would save your child some suffering.

The new information on how to treat chicken pox is to keep the skin moist, to avoid sores drying out and scarring. This also helps to stop some of the itching.

So, since calamine lotion and bicarb soda are drying agents, they’re no longer considered the best treatment.

We chose a combination of products to help the Bump get through this week of major itching.

1. An antihisthamine

This helps to reduce the rash by limiting the body’s reaction to toxins.

We chose Phenergan, because of its’ sedative qualities, and gave the Bump the recommended amount for sedation. It didn’t put him to sleep (but that’s just him), but it did relax and calm him.

2. A bath additive

Soaking in something to soothe and moisturise the skin will stop those itchy sores from becoming dry and itchier.

Pinetarsol was recommended by our local chemist (who is also a friend), and although it turns the bathwater a “pee-yellow” colour, it’s been very effective. It took the redness right out of the Bump’s sores, and he had a pretty good night’s sleep afterwards.

3. A lotion

Something to relieve the itch and moisturise the skin between baths is important, too.

Our chemist friend told us that Pine Tar is the best product for this, and we can use it afterwards to treat the kidz’ excema and mozzie bites.

Okay, this is how it is for me…

I know I come and go here and it must seem that I’m the least reliable person on the face of the planet.

I say I’m going to do something & quite often nothing happens.

There is a reason, however, and I’ve had a pretty tough week, so I’m just going to go verbally diuretic and let it all hang out.

Sorry.

and yes, I know that grammar was awful. so shoot me.

~ For that, too.

So what’s the story?

You’ve probably seen the page link at the top of this blog; “What is CFS?”.

Well, it’s a real pain, to be frank. That’s one thing I didn’t put in the information on that page.

I actually thought that a detailed look at my past week might help people in understanding more about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, & how it affects the lives of those it touches..

To be brief, I’ve spent four out of the last five days sleeping.

And the nights. And I’m still tired.

The kidz have missed me, as I’ve gone to bed while they were still at the dinner table twice, and still been sleeping on two mornings when they both left for school.

Thank heavens for Grandma!

WonderHubby has missed me, for much the same reason.

My mother has seen quite a bit more of me than usual this week, but I’ve been kind of busy snoring, so the conversation has lagged a bit.

The cat has missed me too, and has spent each night curled up tight beside me to get maximum “oomph” from my drowsily-delivered strokes at 1.30am.

Tonight, I’m in one of my ‘productive’ phases.

This means that:

1. I will get a lot done in a short time. It’s a great time to finish unfinished jobs or write blog posts for the future,
2. I will probably be unable to sleep tonight,
3. I am in danger of burning out if I don’t manage to cool it soon.

My life is a continual roller-coaster of this cycle, sometimes more or less pronounced, but it’s usually there to be spotted by the keen eye.

This is why I come over all enthusiastic at times & start things I can’t possibly keep up with over the long term.

And before you ask, I’m not bipolar.
I’ve checked.
Several times, in fact.

It’s just the way my body works now, and I’ve pretty much made my peace with it.

Pretty much.

So next time I announce wild new plans and charge off with all guns blazing towards a new goal, please keep in mind that I do intend to see things through, but my body may well have other plans…

Surgery, Day 3

The morphine drip came out today, and Mr Bump got out of bed for the first time since his surgery.

He needed a good cuddle, and the only one who would do was Grandma.

Followed by some ice cream, of course…

Then it was time for a short walk, and he was not tired!

It’s amazing how convenient wheelchairs can be for watching TV.

Maybe we should get one at home, Mummy?

We had a visit from Despereaux the mouse, and wondered what the heck it was all about.

And then LUNCH arrived…

After almost 48 hours since his last meal, almost anything would have tasted good, but devon & tomato sauce sandwiches just hit the spot!

We took the wheelchair for a spin and explored the playground outside, when Wren arrived after school.

Then Wren & Grandma dropped me home and Daddy had a sleepover in the hospital with Mr Bump.

Surgery, Day 2

Today, Mr Bump was awake for longer periods - about an hour and a half at a time, then later for a few hours.

When we arrived, the nurses and other parents remarked on his beautiful manners through the night; “Please may I have a drink of water?”.
It was sweet to hear he remembered his manners better than he does normally, but why are they so good when he’s not feeling well?!

He just had the drain removed from his chest when we arrived at 8.30am, which we hadn’t expected that early, and later in the day the drips and monitors were slowly removed.

It was all quite painful, but he was a very brave little boy and earnt another “Super Brave Day” bead for his Heart Beads string.

A surprise gift basket arrived at about 9am from Daddy’s work, packed with drawing and painting supplies.  It was the perfect thing!

Here our little angel is about half an hour after the basket arrived. Kind of spaced out, but he insisted that he was still painting.

He fell asleep not long after.

Wren and Grandma arrived a while later and Mr Bump shared his new paint set with sis.

Wren created a lovely “I <!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Arial; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>

love you” painting that we stuck up on the noticeboard as soon as we moved out of ICU and into the ward.

It didn’t take long before it was time for another nap, but that was the last one in ICU.

Yes, I know I look awful in the shot (kind of like a horse with all those teeth), but it’s the only one we have of Mr Bump painting the nose of one of the wonderful Clown Doctors!

They called in just after we moved into the ward, and insisted on putting up “Christmas streamers” (toilet paper hung over the curtain railings).

Our little boy was a wee bit overwhelmed, but they were great fun.

A very active day and both he & I slept well, despite being in a strange place.

Before and After

The last photo of Mr Bump’s unblemished chest before his surgery and the first photo afterwards.

Surgery Date Set

Our ISP has decided to allow me to access my blog domain once again, after almost two weeks of inaction.
Not surprisingly, a new ISP is just a matter of time now.

So we now have a date for Mr Bump’s open heart surgery for ASD; the 2nd December at Westmead Children’s Hospital. He’ll be in for a week, and need to be kept fairly quiet for about a month afterwards.

No heavy New Years partying for you, this year, little man. 

In January, we’ll be hosting a “school holiday party”. It’ll allow Wren & Mr Bumps to catch up with their friends and the Boyo can show off his scar.

On the surgeon’s advice, we’ll be missing the last 3 weeks of preschool, mainly to avoid bumps and pokes to his chest.

The surgeon has plenty of experience with this particular operation, apparently. He’s made a number of trips to Rwanda with other surgeons & a team of nurses to perform surgery on children there.

In a tent.

In fact, he’ll be returning from doing another stint there, the week before Mr Bump’s op. So our little angel will be in very good hands.

The surgery will consist of a incision of about 2in length down the centre of Mr Bump’s chest, through the breastbone.

His heart will be stopped and his blood pumped by machine.

They’ll go into the right atrium (top right heart chamber) and either sew the hole shut, or patch it with tissue taken from around his heart.

It should take about an hour and a half for the surgeon to do his bit, which is a relatively short length of time for this particular operation. Some surgeries take over four hours.

I’m going to take my cross-stitch, a book and WonderHubby. I doubt I’ll manage to make any use of the first two items during the day, but WH will definitely come in handy for hugs.

Actually, I made it sound like I’m dragging him along, but of course I couldn’t keep him away if I tried. We’ll hold hands and spend the time watching the clock together.

I think I’m going to let Wren have the day off school, too. She’ll be totally unable to concentrate, anyway.

What do you think?

Would she be better off with her Grandma or trying to do her work at school?

Atrial Septal Defect, What Fun.

Where to begin?

Well, almost 2 years ago, our doctor heard a slight murmur when she listened to Mr Bump’s chest and sent him for an echocardiogram.

It turned out that he had two holes in his heart, which in all likelihood would close over by themselves.

Not a problem. We forgot all about it.

Fast-forward to yesterday, when Mr Bump had another echocardiogram to confirm that the holes had indeed closed.

Slight problem. Hmmm.

The larger of the two has actually grown in that time (to roughly keep pace with the size of his heart), from 8mm to 12mm in diameter.

The good news is that there are no serious health issues for Mr Bump at the moment, although it may explain why he still has had such frequent attacks of croup.

The bad news is that because of the size of the hole, his paediatric cardiologist believes that a patch will not be enough, and Mr Bump will need surgery.

This year, so that it doesn’t interfere with kindergarten next year.

We have an appointment with the surgeon on the 23rd of September, when we’ll find out exactly what that will involve.

The actual problem is called Atrial Septal Defect (ASD), which is actually more common in girls, but I guess we got lucky.

Another way we got lucky is that ASD can usually be treated with a minor procedure not involving surgery.

Not this little chicken. We’re getting the whole kit and caboodle.

Because from what I’ve read, “surgery” in this case means open-heart surgery, with a heart-lung bypass machine. Scary stuff.

The really fun part is that we’ll be going through this while doing all the stuff involved in finding, buying and moving into our new home. I can’t wait.

At least it won’t be the first time that Mr Bump’s had surgery. He had a medical circumcision in July last year, so he has a vague idea of what it will be like.

I have my fingers crossed that the surgeon will take one look at the test results and say “No surgery for you, m’ boy. We’ll be able to patch that little hole up in a jiffy.”

First, moving, now this. I just hope these things don’t come in threes.

We Apologise for the Break in Transmission

This is a quick update for you regarding the August edition of the Kraft for Kidz blog carnival, which was supposed to be published today.

Unfortunately, I’m quite unwell at the moment and the carnival will have to wait until next weekend.

After a Saturday filled with moving furniture, sorting boxes and generally being householdy, I find I’ve really overdone it.

I’m exhausted.

I’ve actually been in bed, sleeping, for most yesterday afternoon and today.
Which is why there was nothing posted yesterday, and just this short message today.

Please bear with me, as I won’t be around much this week while I recover.

It doesn’t seem to matter that I’ve had two decades of CFS in which to learn to pace myself, I still get carried away and end up wiped out!

Hopefully, I will be up to some writing later in the week.
I may have to get WonderHubby to bring me the laptop in bed, in order to prevent blogging withdrawal.

If you’re new here, I hope you’ll take the time to look at some past craft projects & recipes, dig into the dark, musty archives and visit some of the fantabulous sites on my blogroll, which are well worth a squizz.

In the meanwhile, if anyone has any labour~saving tips to help me out as I slowly recover my energy, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or by email.

Eating My Own Words

When Wren was about 4½, her preschool teachers noticed that she seemed to be having problems coping emotionally.

While her friends had begun to shrug off knock~backs and disappointments, she continued to be overly upset and throw tantrums. She didn’t seem to be developing emotionally, somehow.

I wasn’t too concerned at first, as each child develops at their own rate, but when she continued having problems after her 5th birthday, I began to look for a reason.

Grandma had been watching one of those current affairs shows and suggested that it might be worth a try.

Now, before this, I’d often watched current affairs shows tout the terrible effects of food colourings and scoffed. Look at those parents blaming something else for their rotten parenting, I’d think.

But, as a last resort, I did some research into reducing the number of artificial food colourings in our foods. I started with Wren’s favourite foods and drinks and the colourings in those.

Because the problem had become worse since switching Wren’s favourite drink, I was able to narrow the problem to two colourings in particular. These were Tartrazine (102) and the appealingly~named Sunset Yellow FCF (110).

I was surprised at the number and types of foods that contained them. Some I’d thought were actually healthy.

I still didn’t expect to see much difference in Wren’s behaviour, and it certainly wouldn’t show for a couple of weeks.

The next day at around lunch time, I noticed that Wren had only had one small tantrum that day. It had been about 18 hours since she’d last had either of those food colourings.

Within 3 days, it was as though I was dealing with a different child. I had my sweetheart, my angel, my beautiful kind daughter, back again.

The reason I’m bringing this up now is that Mr Bump’s behaviour has deteriorated since about Easter and I’m again reviewing our foods.

I wanted to share the most valuable online resource that I have been able to find, and hopefully help someone else’s little angel to return to normal.

Edited to add:

As I’m still researching, I’ll be adding any helpful new links here over the next few days.

If you have one to share, email me and I’ll pop it in here and credit the find to you.

1. Top 20 Food Additives to Avoid

Yo Ho Ho and a Gallon of Pee.

There are one or two tests that Dr Lewis (my new CFS doc) has asked me to have done and I did a couple on Monday.

One in particular was pretty awful, so of course that’s what I’m going to tell you about. I’ll try not to be too graphic.

When I rang to make an appointment for the tests, the girl insisted that I needed to come see them so that they could “explain things”.

I fursed about it to WonderHubby, and then went to see them.
Control freaks.

When I went in I learnt that it wasn’t to tell me anything, it was to give me something. And not an early birthday present, either.

The nurse took me into a private room and then disappeared into a cupboard. She reappeared holding a 4 litre bottle.

That’s right, US viewers, it held almost a gallon.

“What’s that for?” I asked innocently.

“It’s for your 24 hour urine test.”

“I beg your pardon? How much do you pee each day?” No, I didn’t say it, but I was thinking it.

I definitely fursed under my breath though. We buy milk in smaller bottles.

To make matters worse, the hole through which I had to pee was just over an inch across.

Who exactly designs these things? They never thought a woman would use one, that’s for sure.

I seriously needed a funnel, people.

In the end, I ended up with less than two litres in the bottle, which must have been a huge disappointment for whomever was doing the testing.

I still can’t work out which was the worst part.

Providing the… erm, liquid, or carrying a huge, sloshing bottle of it through the shopping centre in my shoulder bag.

Euww….