A Christmas hitch

The family party we hosted on Christmas Eve (to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary and the fact that S had reached 65 and I had my 70th during the year) went pretty well. Then we spent quality time with S's family (4 generations including her 3 mostly wonderful grandchildren) on Christmas day.

On Boxing Day, they were due to come and collect S to take her across to an old family friend who was having a party and I would have had time to myself to finish clearing up after the party, amongst other things. Then it turned out that S's 2 year-old granddaughter had chicken pox! After thinking it through and trying to check the facts, it seemed foolhardy to risk any further contact with the child whilst she was infectious. Dementia is hard enough without the added complication of shingles.  One consolation was that when I told S there was no indication that it bothered her.

She had of course been in contact during the previous two days so the decision to keep her at home and forego the time to myself was not entirely logical. Even worse, one of my online friends referred me to the NHS website where there is a categorical statement: 'It is not possible to catch shingles from someone else with the condition, or from someone with chickenpox.'  (Apparently the reason why the Herpes Zoster virus sometimes becomes re-activated and causes shingles is unknown.)

So the only risk would have been catching chicken pox again (S had had it as a child) and this is pretty unusual.

Anyway, we were able to enjoy the youngest granddaughter's birthday party on the 27th.  

It's certainly encouraging that several members of the family commented on S's increased awareness, from time to time, of what is going on around her and I believe this is probably due to the medication (Co-careldopa) that she has been prescribed for the Parkinson's symptoms.