To zoo, or not to zoo...

The doctor will decide.

Hrumph.

My son came home from school Wednesday with a spot of impetigo on his chin. Normally, if he gets it, it is a tiny blister that may end up no larger than a very small pea. We put medicine on it, cover it with a band-aid, and in a few days it is gone.

This is a huge cluster of smallish blisters about the size of a quarter! Or, they are now, as this morning when I sent him to school, they were still tiny, albeit covering a quarter-sized area.

warning: medical related stuff ahead!

Impetigo is very contagious if the blisters burst and the fluid gets on any other part of the body. We are usually super, super, super careful that this does not happen, because it is ugly looking, and extremely itchy. In all of the years since he's had it (the first was when he was about 16 months old, and had contracted it from one of the other kids), I have been successful at keeping it contained. The type he gets is caused by staphylococcus aureus. The blisters are full of clear fluid first, then it becomes cloudy, then if everything goes okay, they dry up, and eventually just flake off, leaving good skin behind.

Because he has dealt with this off and on almost his whole life, having occassional flare-ups, usually no more than once or twice in a three year period, he is a kid who does not just itch or rub his skin. He leaves all scrapes and mosquito bites alone. This is in a new area.

But, I digress. It is very, very contagious. So contagious, that after sending him to school today with it covered by a band-aid, only to have it get worse, I am pulling him out of school to go to the doctor tomorrow to see if anything else can be done (prescription strength anti-biotic ointment, plus maybe an oral anitbiotic). The doc will also have to decide if we can go on our zoo trip this weekend. It's not just that we are going to the zoo, it's that we are going to be camping out and WORKING at the zoo. Lots of chances for spreading, and maybe having it get infected. Yuck.

He is devastated at the thought that he may not get to go.

I am just tired of having this happen.