our journey through chicken pox

So, last Thursday I posted that Nina had the chicken pox, but I thought it would be helpful for others going through (or about to go through) it how it went for us. Thursday Nina was happy and only a little uncomfortable, though by the end of the day she had blisters all over. Thursday night was miserable, none of us got more than a few hours of sleep. We tried applying apple cider vinegar compresses, oatmeal baths, and homeopathic pulsatilla.

Friday was hard because our playgroup had a lovely faery party with costumes, stories, a magical tree, and flowers. I had signed up to bring flowers so I picked every flower in my garden and packed them into a paper bag with wet paper towels. We brought them to the playgroup and had a mama get them from the car for us, it was sad to see everyone having fun but truth be told Nina and I were both too tired to have had much fun anyway. I had read that a good remedy for the itching was a mixture of calamine lotion and essential oils of german chamomile and lavender. Once I had bought all of that, of course Nina would have nothing to do with the mixture. She was uncomfortable, though, so I put about a half a cup of oatmeal in the food processor and then into a sock, which I tied off and put into a warm bath along with the german chamomile oil. Coupled with the portable dvd player sitting on the toilet, this provided Nina with an hour of relief at a time. When bedtime came around I was afraid we were in for another sleepless night so I gave Nina some Herbs For Kids valerian to help her sleep. This worked for a couple of hours, but she woke at 11 and was very uncomfortable. At this point I remembered that I had some chewable benadryl and gave it to her. Within a half an hour she was sleeping peacefully and didn't wake up until 6:30 on Saturday morning.

Saturday she was happy and seemed comfortable, and even though she still had a few blisters, many had scabbed over. Which was good, because Larry left for a week on Sunday and I was hoping Nina would be able to sleep by then. I didn't need to worry, she had scabbed over completely and spent enough time in my mom's pool to get a tan line from her swimsuit. We skipped playgroup on Monday just to be sure even though everything I have read says that once all the blisters scab over there is no contagion. By Tuesday she was back in school. The only sign that she was sick at all is that she has scabs all over but is totally fine. I did keep putting the german chamomile in the bath water along with some tea tree oil to avoid infection on Monday and Tuesday. So far so good, no infection.

I had chicken pox when I was 19 and was very sick, so I was relieved and surprised to find that though Nina was very uncomfortable for a while she was never sick; she never even had a fever. I am so glad she was able to get it over with while she was little and able to heal easily.