Attack of the Chicken Dots

12 February 2010

My classroom has turned into a great case study on the effects of the Varicella Vaccine. That’s right, we’ve been invaded by the chicken pox. It all started after Christmas break, when one of my students left school the first week with a fever. Turns out she had gotten the pox from her cousin, who was visiting from Denmark over the holidays. Bummer, I thought, but the student had a lowered immune system from several sicknesses before and it seemed like “one more thing” to add to the list. Her case was bad (reminding me of my own experience – I couldn’t lay down to sleep since my back was so covered with itchy dots) and we prayed for her. A lot.

Then, 2 weeks later to the day, another girl didn’t come to school.

She came back early, before all her spots were completely crusted over. I didn’t realize at first that this was the case, and didn’t know enough about chicken pox to send her home right away. But 2 days later she left my class completely exhausted, and missed the next day of school. Turns out her pox had gotten infected, and she had an extremely high fever the next two days.

Now, I was catching the drift. But unfortunately, my parents were not. Sure enough, 2 weeks later 3 more of my kids came down with the pox. I started getting really good at planning for a week at a time, and sending home a week’s worth of work at the beginning so they could work as they felt better. In fact, I gave up my regular planning pages altogether and started planning my classroom work schedule as I prepared work to send home. It just made the process easier.

Seeing as my only student who had been vaccinated and had gotten the pox had gotten the vaccine in Tanzania, I thought maybe the dose was not good. But I soon discovered that the vaccine just makes the cases lighter. This time, the cases were spread out. 2 came down with it exactly 14 days after the last batch, but then 3 more had headaches and felt feverish the next day. 4 of these students had been vaccinated in America, and though their cases were much lighter than other students, I started having a sinking feeling it wasn't really going to help. I knew what was coming. A boy from the States had a headache the day after, and 2 days later, another student came in feeling itchy. I looked at her face, and saw bumps. Everywhere.

The best part was when three of my students all showed up on one day, saying "I know I'm still contagious, but I've been running around outside and feel great, so my mom said to try it." I sent them all home, wrote an email (in English) to all my parents, and two days later had a Korean student come announcing "I just got a new pox this morning, but I feel fine!"

After having seven out this time, I’m wondering what’s coming next. I officially have 4 students left who haven’t had the pox before, and these students are pretty much doing whatever they can to get it (rumors of bad cases as you get older have been floating around my class the past week). Unfortunately, my students have siblings, and Ms. Varicella is spreading to the rest of the school. Grades 1, 2, 6, and 8 each got a case this past week, and I know this is really only the beginning in a place with a much-less common occurrence of chicken pox. Wish us luck!

On the bright side, I’ve gotten to be an expert at determining pox cases, and have recently become the resident expert. Our nurse just went out with swine flu (the second graders were out for a week because they all got it...), and since then the first and second grade teachers started sending their kids to me to check. Turns out students with dark skin don’t get “red” dots, just “bumps” that appear over the course of a few hours and start itching.

Also good to note is that we’ve started having fun, almost "laughing," (ha!) with the process. Yesterday we read “Goldie Locks has Chicken Pox” (thanks , Ms. Townsend, for leaving the book), and we’ve begun our “real life math journals” with a class-example using the chicken pox (yep, MDY, math really IS everywhere!!!). My kids are hoping to change their skit of Daniel for the assembly next week to a rendition where King Nebuchadnezzar gets the chicken pox at the end. I’m not sure quite how Biblical that would be (Holda?), but right now, I’m just hoping to make it through to the assembly with most of my kids back. And I am certainly giving thanks for the many teachers who have helped me along the way to survive this crazy ordeal!!! There’s nothing like tough times to help me realize I’m not alone – and just how many people I have whom are willing to help me out!