Tuesday, January 22, 2008

SCRATCH ROSS RIVER VIRUS

Another long night in Casualty and in isolation. A nurse recognised the rash as Chicken Pox so I get an urgent message from sister to find out if he'd had it. Of course he had it, the two boys shared everything, from Lego to Lice and Chicken Pox.

They hooked him up to an IV drip full of anti-histamine and pain killers. The spotty bits were so far down his throat they were worried about them going into the lungs. Blood tests confirmed no Ross River Fever but he had anti-bodies to Glandular Fever. Damned if I know when he had that.

The internal pains will subside in their own good time and so will the rash. He mustn't scratch the itching spots in case of bacterial infection. It's good news in a way as he won't take as long to get well but he doesn't appreciate that yet. And we have no idea where he picked it up.

So I moved the furniture again. It was a case of stress eat or stress move the furniture. I moved the desk back to the other side of the room and the computer is back on what seems like a teeny tiny table and the monitor is an inch too low. Maybe the chair is too high. The table is better, give me a vast space and I'll fill it with rubbish in a week. Hopefully now I haven't got room to lean on a hard surface, the pain in my neck will ease up.

I've de-activated Facebook again and this time for good so I'm not blocking your emails or ignoring you.

11 comments:

Shelley said...

Ugh, poor thing. I hope they're giving him lots of soothing drugs.

Maria said...

(Partially) because of your comments I haven't started facebook, even more reason not to now. Good luck with the non-Facebooking!

Hope the poor boy is better soon. Though I usually find the warning not to scratch an enticement to scratch all the more, which I suppose accounts for some of the unseemly little marks on my skin. They really should have told me to scratch them, then I probably wouldn't have been half as tempted.

Jayne said...

That's a nasty dose he's got !
Knock him out and bandage his hands to stop him scratching.
He might have had the Glandular Fever recently, kicking his immune system to the kerb for CP to invade.

JahTeh said...

Endone at the moment Nails because of the virus down his throat. Anything else he can't swallow.

Maria, the best thing for inflammation like this is Mylanta so he looks like he's made up for a horror movie but today he could stand upright for the first time.

Jayne, I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it. I don't have to worry about scratching because he's worried enough about being called 'Scarface'.

Brian Hughes said...

That makes sense. It had to be the measles or the chicken pox or scabies or something like that. Plenty of camomile lotion 'cos those buggers itch to the point of no return. In fact, fill a bathtub with the stuff, give him a newspaper/comic to read and leave him to soak for the next five days, or until marinated thoroughly. Cook for ten minutes on Gas Mark 5 and serve with a side helping of sprouts.

Maria said...

Jayne, I wish someone had bandaged my hands, tied me down etc, but of course no. Yes, it's my responsibility, but I've got a few marks here and there. I'm a scratcher. If there's something to fiddle with, I fiddle, be it pimple, scab, whatever. That can actually be a virtue, though, as once I thought I found a slightly loose, but not entirely loose, hard scab on my ear. I felt it while I was lying in bed at night, it felt hard. I thought I ought to leave it alone, but being the fiddler I am, I couldn't so I kept tugging. I finally pulled it off. It hurt! But finally enough there was no liquid feeling on the skin on my ear, so I turned on the light to get a look at the scab, thinking it was unusual for there not to be the feeling of liquid, be it blood or mucous, left as residue.

It was not a scab.

It was a small beetley insect that had found its way onto the skin of my ear and had clung on, hard. It had hurt as I pulled it off as it had been clinging on with its legs! The hardness I felt was its shell, not a scab. Luckily I insisted on pulling it off that night! Or it might have crawled right inside my ear. My ear felt a little tender but no lasting damage.

Ozfemme said...

No. No calomine lotion. It promotes scarring. Tsk Tsk, Mr Hughes. Are you living in the dark ages.

Hope there is speed of recovery for your sick one.

River said...

I'm a little surprised at the mistake. Usually chicken pox blisters appear almost immediately on the rash. anyway, hope he's feeling better by now. Calamine lotion doesn't work. When my kids had it, they soothed the itch with several dips per day in cool water. It was summertime so they didn't bother with towelling off, they just drip dried and it seemed to help.

Middle Child said...

Lets hope for you that things ease sooner than later okay> : )

Brian Hughes said...

"Tsk Tsk, Mr Hughes. Are you living in the dark ages."

No, Fleetwood. It amounts to much the same thing.

JahTeh said...

Don't worry Fleetwood, he's cooking from the inside out and itching from the outside in. No camomile, Mylanta, you know the soothing of heartburn stuff.

Maria, that sounds like one of those urban legends or a StarTrek episode. Wasn't it "The Believers" where the spiders hatched out of her face? That was a spooky film.

River, no one expects a 30 something to get Chicken Pox and Pinetarsal in a bath is soothing. I used that when the boys climbed the fir tree and ran into fire caterpillars that shed stinging hairs as a defence.

Therese, trouble expands to fill the anxiety available.