Poor Babies

I should have published this yesterday. So, I'm just going to pretend I did. 
 
Well, it was bound to happen. With all these children it was only a matter of time before a 'childhood' illness swept the ranks.

Funny thing though. It was a grown up who brought it to our doors. Lizzie (one of our youngest nannies), was diagnosed with a serious ear infection back in July, which caused her face and especially the jaw area to swell terrifically. With no real reason to doubt the diagnosis, we gave her the allotted five days off work and that was that.

One of our volunteers did suspect mumps, but we thought that was too far-fetched.

Well....Zeger, you were right.

A couple/few weeks later, Troy had swollen glands and Naomi had quite a swelling on one side of her face. I showed Naomi to the village medical officer and asked if it could perhaps be mumps. He quickly pooh-poohed that idea and said it was most likely an ear infection.
Since she didn't seem to be suffering or running any type of fever, I let it go for a day and she was just fine.
To be safe, I confined Troy to his bed because mumps (while a pretty benign illness) can have a bad side effect in adolescent males.

Two-three weeks later, guess what?? Two of the children have swollen glands and jaws. We took them to the clinic and the same officer now diagnoses them with mumps*. Huh.

And, to further boost our confidence in him, he prescribes antibiotics. For a virus.

So, mumps is now making its way through all the children. Poor Beauty is the latest victim.

From this picture you can't really tell much is wrong unless you know her really well.

But, here. Look at that swelling.

The main way to treat mumps is plenty of liquids and bed rest. Most of the kids don't feel very sick at all so it's been challenging trying to get them to rest.

I just hope it gets over and done with quickly. If it drags out with a few 'victims' every 2-3 weeks we could still be fighting this at Christmas time.

*To be clear, all of our children have been vaccinated. I'm not sure why mumps has made this sudden appearance.


Exactly One Year Ago: Witches Brew--No Need for Eye of Newt (how I combat other illnesses)
Exactly Three Years Ago: Just Another Ordinary Day
Exactly Four Years Ago: A Hospital Visit (what's with this time of year?)