Rashes, vaccines and pox. Oh my!

So we've got Fifth Disease in the house. After coming up with scarlet fever, measles, rubella and roseola, I suppose nobody in the medical community felt like giving erythema infectiosum a more interesting nickname. Can you hear them in the lab? "Hey, we've got another rash-type virus, but it's a little different" "Geez, the fifth one of these now? You name this one." "No, you name it." "No, you name it." And so on.

One of my daughters had what appeared to be sunburned cheeks the other day, then I noticed her trunk was blotchy and she was itchy. It's the typical lacy pattern of the so-called Fifth Disease. A few weeks back, while she was home from school, she ran a mild fever, but wasn't too uncomfortable. Now that the rash has appeared, she's no longer contagious. Go figure.

I called my brother to warn him -- our kids spend a lot of time together. He said, "Maybe we should just throw them all in a room together and get it all over with," since you're immune once you've had it. Like a good part of my generation is with chicken pox, and apparently many of us have had Fifth Disease, too, but never knew it.

I sometimes wonder about the chicken pox vaccine available now. We all had it when we were kids. I have a very vague memory of it, I was pretty young. But it went through our house -- five kids -- and then we were done. Now they've got a vaccine, but I worry that it may not be as effective at providing lifelong immunity.

I have very strong memories of getting my "Rubella Umbrella" vaccine as a little girl, and of the big campaign to get all children vaccinated. Then during my first pregnancy, I found out I wasn't immune and had to get a shot right after delivery. I did let my kids get the chicken pox vaccine, but I am a little concerned that it won't "last" either.