That would be my husband. He has managed to cause the herpes zoster virus stored in his system during childhood to rear its ugly head and play with his body for the next few weeks. So you don’t need to go research on google or wikipedia, when he was a kid, he got a little something called chicken pox which was caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV). That virus remained dormant in his system until it decided it wanted to pop up again in the form of a rash and painful nerve endings. You might have heard it referred to as shingles.
Needless to say, this is not exactly something you want to be attacked with while pregnant. If one has not had chicken pox before, you can get it and you don’t want a baby being born with them. Other problems can also be caused with the baby. Thankfully, I had the pleasure of being covered with the pox when I was in kindergarten, after some lovely parent sent their infected kid to school on the last day of class before Christmas vacation. Remind me to try that out some day…assuming I want to make everyone’s holidays living hell.
At any rate, I ended up going to my doctor this morning and having a blood test done to check my antibodies. Instead of making us worry all weekend, he was kind enough to call us at 7pm this evening to say that I have a very high level of antibodies and there should be no risk to Mackenzie. It also means I shouldn’t have to worry about getting sick. A few prayers being answered there!
But, believe it or not, Stefan will be contageous for about 3 weeks…so that means no contact with the outside world. He was thinking he would be going back to work at least, as long as everyone there has already had chicken pox…but they seem to be hoping he’ll stay away. So we may be getting some small things done around the house unexpectedly…which would be fantastic. That is assuming Stefan isn’t in too much pain. Everyone keeps mentioning how bad it usually is and, he said, thus far it isn’t horrible; noticeable but not too unpleasant. He didn’t get any pain killers subscribed, only anti-viral meds…so I guess it could get interesting.
