CHICKENPOX and INTRAVENOUS CANNULATION

by Earlie Doriman

When springtime comes, one of the most common diseases comes around too: the CHICKENPOX. In fact, it is dubbed as a classic childhood illness because in most cases, it happens to children below ten years old. And my two sons were not an exception as they suffered this viral illness recently.

To us, the last couple of weeks were the most challenging so far this year. My two children had chickenpox, one after another. My eldest son Matthew got the virus from the nursery. When I picked him up from school, I noticed threenor four red spots on his neck but I thought those were just plain rash marks. When I changed him at home there were few more around his body, my wife declared it was chickenpox. The following day, it was obvious that my son has indeed caught the airborne disease. It was all over his body including his tongue and mouth.

In two weeks time, Matthew suffered the highly contagious illness. He complained of headache and pain, his temperature was high and was uncomfortable. He did not like to eat. He would cry to see his face covered with small black scab as the blisters began to subside. To ease his discomfort, we applied to affected areas some Calamine lotion and Eurax cream and gave him his dosage of paracetamol. After 15 days, the lesions have crusted over and Matthew regained his old playful and confident self although the marks of the illness were still visible. Aside from the physical suffering that he endured, he had to stay at home for that period to avoid spreading the disease to other susceptible children but his younger brother Thomas.

Thomas is just 17 months, but the virus does not care about that. Our poor little Thomas caught the varicella zoster virus (VZV) seriously. We knew he would get it after Matthew but the severity of his chickenpox was too much. Just after two days when the red spots first appeared, he was already covered with such an alarming pockmarks and blisters. His face seemed to swell and his temperature was very high. We were so worried when he started to shiver and his cries were too much to remain composed.  We chose no other option but to rush Thomas to the Rochdale Infirmary A&E unit. Fortunately, his case was attended immediately and after an initial assessment about his condition, the doctor requested the hospital staff to put our little son to the children’s ward. His temperature was 40 and his throat inflamed. He was still shaking and his cries became expression of overtiredness.

It was a blow on the head, and seeing Thomas crying helplessly was very upsetting and painful. At the children’s ward, the registrar informed us that the lesions were seriously infected so Thomas has to get proper medication. He was given antibiotic, pain killer, and other sort of fluid to control the infection and itchiness. The distressing part was that it was through intravenous cannulation. An intravenous cannula is inserted into a vein for the administration of fluids and medicine and my little Thomas was subjected to it. The process should have been straightforward but Thomas is a chunky baby, so there was no visible vein to insert the cannula. It took four attempts to successfully get the needle into the right vein and to me, each attempt was equally painful as seeing my son struggling to get free. He did not understand why he has to underwent such punishment. Prayer is our only rescue.

Thomas stayed at the ward for four long days and was finally discharged last Monday afternoon. He is better now and playing again. I am very grateful to all the staff of the Rochdale Infirmary Children’s Unit because they are very fantastic people during Thomas’ stay and we could not thank them enough for looking after our son wonderfully.