About Fifty or So Big Red Itchy Dots?

My mother must have hovered over my brother and I and shielded all germs, bacteria and any virus that floated our direction when we were children, because I don't remember being kept prisoner in our apartment on a regular basis. But, somehow neither my brother or I got Chicken Pox growing up. I went about my life, I even worked in a day care center when I was in highschool and babysat in college. I lived my early life escaping the varicella-zoster virus.

One Sunday morning I awoke, took a shower, and stood in front of my mirror to put on my face for the day. I noticed some blister like spots on my chest. I didn't think much about it. Later, I headed off to church to teach my precious first graders about Jesus. I was waiting for children to arrive when I read a memo from the children's minister. There was a outbreak of Chicken Pox in our church and it gave a detailed description of what to look for. It all started to sink in at that point. Oh No, that's what those spots are!!! I normally had a room full of children on Sunday, but that day only one boy arrived. I went home that day, shocked that I had chicken pox and I was nine months pregnant with my second child!

That whole two to three weeks of my life is somewhat of a blur. I remember calling my doctor. "About how many spots do you have, about fifty?", he asked. "Uh, I don't know, a lot, I haven't counted them." He went on to tell me there really wasn't any medication I could take, but as long as I didn't go into labor everything would be fine. "Okay, everything will be fine,", I reassured myself.

My husband and I had a nightly ritual during those agonizing days. The only comfort I had was to get in the shower and let the scorching water from the hand held shower head (what were those things called?) pulsate every inch of my body. It imitated the scratching I was forbidden to do. After the shower, my husband would patiently and lovingly assist me in applying pink Calamine lotion with a cotton ball on my red spots. I needed my husband's help to reach the spots under my huge pregnant stomach. I couldn't reach let alone see the lower portion of my body. A true testament of love, I must say! I was really, really huge!!!! One night, I wondered about how many spots did I have, fifty or so? My husband I together counted over 500 chicken pox on my body! On my face, my scalp, neck, chest, immensley oversized stomach, genital area, legs, and feet. Oh, I forgot, my arms and hands, too! They were freakin - everywhere!!!!!!

I think I have conveniently blotted out the sheer agony I experienced during those weeks. I missed my son's third birthday party. And, I will never forget the meals friends prepared and delivered to us during that time! It was heaven sent! All my pox scabbed nicely before it was time to give birth to my son. If I had received this lovely gift of red polka dots at the beginning of my pregnancy, L could have received major abnormalities or neurological damage. God took care of us with his perfect timing.

I had been checking my three year old's body continuously looking for signs of his special spots. On the day I was laying in the bed in the maternity ward of the hospital waiting for my unwanted C-section, I routinely lifted my son's shirt to examine his little tummy. Guess what I found? A few little blister like spots! Here we go again! We shipped K off to his grandma's for the next two weeks. It was a glorious day when K was scabbed up and ready to meet his brother for the first time. Thankfully, the chicken pox days in our family are over, I think. Knock on wood. L never got pox and has had the vaccine. I always wondered if he had already received some little red spots in my big tummy!