Chickenpox Despite Vaccine

While waiting for the pedia

Three weeks ago, our nanny went on leave. She has been with us for only a little over a month. She initially said that she's allergic to chicken and it seems like she's getting some rashes on her back. We didn't mind it much. However, she said it was becoming more and more painful. It came to a point when she couldn't sleep lying down anymore. She'd She'd sleep sitting down. When we had her checked by the nearby clinic,  it was found out that she was suffering from herpes zoster, or a second bout of chickenpox. Too bad. Bea really liked this nanny. We liked her too, but we had no other choice but to let her go on leave. Berto, Bea and I have never had chickenpox before so we were all susceptible.

After a week, we noticed Bea developed some spots on her skin. I immediately thought it was chickenpox but she didn't have any fever and the spots didn't have liquid in them. Just to be sure we decided to go to St. Luke's to bring Bea to her pediatrician . Too bad daddy was out attending a workshop so it was just us girls. We took a cab to the hospital. Thankfully the driver knew the way thru Commonwealth. 

The doctor looked her over but even she was baffled. Apparently, Bea didn't manifest the typical symptoms of chickenpox and this was probably because of the vaccine she got when she was a baby. The doctor said that vaccines don't provide 100% protection. There is still a chance that she will be infected but the symptoms will be slightly different than the usual symptoms. If I didn't mention that Bea got exposed to her sick nanny, she wouldn't have even considered chickenpox.

I asked for the possibility of adult chickenpox vaccines for hubby and me, but the doctor said that if we were already infected by the virus, the vaccine will be useless. And since we all sleep on one bed, there is a very strong possibility that we already caught it. (Thankfully though we didn't manifest any symptoms.)

The pediatrician gave us a prescription for an antiviral medicine. Good thing, the spots that came out weren't that many. It was just less than 20 spots all over and Bea was able to go back to school after just 2 days.

Eye Check Up, Follow-up Treatment From Bea's Dog Bite

Almost a month ago, my daughter was bitten by a dog on the face. We were so distraught. We rushed her to the San Lazaro Hospital. After she was given her anti-rabies and tetanus shots, the doctor advised us to visit an ophthalmologist since Bea can barely open her eye. It kept on tearing up and she said it hurt. When we got out of the San Lazaro Hospital, we went straight to St. Luke’s Medical Center in E. Rodriguez Quezon City. Since it was a Sunday, we just went to the emergency room. While we were there, they tended to her wounds. We kept on asking for special bandages or stitches for her wound, to prevent or at least lessen scarring, but the doctors refused saying that they don’t stitch up dog bites.

We were then referred to the resident Ophthalmologist, Dra. Roque. She was very kind and Bea warmed up to her immediately. She peeked into Bea’s eye. Then the doctor put an orange-colored dye on Bea’s eye and shone a special light on it then there it was… a long gash right across her retina. My heart was broken. The doctor then proceeded to check Bea’s vision, sadly this further confirmed our fear, her right eye had considerable difficulty seeing the letters on the board. The left one had not problems.

The ophthalmologist gave us a prescription for an ointment to put in her eye, this ointment was also to be used on her wounds. Hopefully, her eyes will heal completely. There was a chance of retinal scarring and this will caused blurry vision that will not be corrected even by wearing glasses.  =( We were advised to visit a pediatric ophthalmologist after 7 days.

After a week we came back to SLMC and thankfully there was a pediatric ophthalmologist available. Dr. Marcial was very kind and eager to make Bea comfortable during our visit. He did the usual eye and vision tests. We almost jumped with joy when we heard the good news, the retina was fully healed, and there was no sign of scarring at all! We’ll have to go back in the future for some more tests, he thinks Bea might need glasses, but this was unrelated to her dog bite accident. Thank you Lord!