Is Superstition the only Cure for Chicken Pox?

I yesterday told you how we lost two of our employees to the chicken pox. No, they didn’t die but left because they didn’t want to take their medicine – and we didn’t want to endanger anybody else. And yes, we told them that they would not get their jobs back if they came here a month later fully cured.

When I shared this story on social media, I had a whole lot of responses, most of which were expected, some of which were based on ignorance or were downright insulting and some others which were supportive of our action.

There were two questions mainly raised or two points where people didn’t agree with us and our actions. The first one was the action of taking the children as well as our staff to the doctor. It is normal – religious and superstitious people in India believe that chicken pox is the anger of the goddess showing and that you have to endure it as a punishment, performing ceremonies and poojas. People tried to educate me that this was a disease that heals without any doctor and that there is no medicine for it. They said our doctor was actually the superstitious person who believed in a medicine that didn’t work or that he was actually cheating us.

People who replied in this way practically think that my family and I and along with us all those people in the west who go to the doctors for it are just stupid. That’s it – we are being cheated by doctors in whom we naively believe that they could help us. They even said there was no existing medicine against it! My reply: do your research!

Of course, the body needs to build its antibodies against the varicella-zoster virus, commonly called chicken pox, itself. I know that there is not something like a pill that will cure this disease in three days and you will be fine! You can however support your immune system in its fight and you can do a lot to relieve the symptoms! There is antiviral medication for adults and there are ointments and powder containing zinc. You can take something against the fever and you can wash yourself to prevent spreading! There is a whole lot you can do – and that’s how our kids were all fine again after about a week while without treatment, it can take several weeks for patients to get fine again. Additionally there can be many complications that affect eyes and brain – not something you would like to risk, would you?

Oh, but yes, people do! As you can see in the example of our former employees, they just don’t believe in medicine but prefer believing in their superstition, even when the positive result of the medicine is in front of them. If they get better, it was the grace of the goddess – not their immune system being strong enough to fight the intruder in their system! They will pray, make offerings and suffer for weeks but they won’t change their minds. I hope that someday people will – or maybe the next generation.

The second point where people raised questions was the fact that we told them not to come back once they were cured. I want to write about the questions and also the answers to this aspect of this whole story tomorrow.