Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 725.
Childhood illnesses and diseases.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 725.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there today and become a member of ESL Podcasts.
The world will be a happier place if you do.
This episode is on the always happy topic of childhood illnesses and diseases.
We're going to talk about the names of some common illnesses and diseases that unfortunately, children sometimes get.
Let's get started.
You look exhausted.
Another tough day at the daycare center?
Yeah, it was.
This is a record year for the kids getting sick.
The chicken pox is going around.
Last year it was the measles.
The year before that, it was the mumps.
This year, it's the chicken pox.
You sent the kids home, right?
Yeah, but today a couple of the kids looked like they have pink eye and I had to call their parents to let them know.
What happened to simple nosebleeds and earaches?
Oh, we have kids with those, too, but it's the contagious diseases that really take its toll.
I'm not sure, but I think one of the little kids has strep throat and a couple of the really little kids have croup.
I wish there were a way to immunize all of them from every illness and disease out there.
Yeah, why? because it sounds like you're working at the Center for Disease Control.
Tomorrow, I suggest wearing a gas mask to work.
Rebecca begins by saying to Puneet, you look exhausted, meaning you look very tired.
Another tough day at the daycare center?
Another difficult day at the daycare center?
Daycare centers are places where you can take young children and they will take care of them for you during the day.
Pretty logical, right?
Daycare is usually something provided for children who are not yet old enough to go to school.
So anyone from being a baby to say, five or six years old, although some programs also have after-school care where you can take a child after they finish school.
However, for the most part, daycare is for men and women who work during the day and need someone to watch their young children.
Puneet says, yes, it was.
It was a tough day.
This is a record year for the kids getting sick.
A record year is a year where you have the highest level or highest amount of something.
A year with more of something than any other year.
So if you said this is a record year for rainfall, for the amount of rain that has fallen from the sky in this area,
That means that no other year has had as much rain as this year.
Record has a couple of different meanings in English.
You can find those in our wonderful learning guide.
Puneet says the kids are getting sick this year more than any other year, so it's a record year.
The chicken pox is going around.
Chicken pox, P-O-X, is an infection that is easily shared among children and sometimes among adults.
It is a disease that can give you a fever, a high temperature.
It causes you to be tired often.
And, more importantly, it produces small little red spots or marks on your skin that are itchy, meaning you want to take your fingers and move them back and forth over them what we would call scratch them.
That's chicken pox.
It's a very common problem. disease, illness among children.
I had chickenpox.
I think you can get chickenpox typically just once, and I certainly remember having it when I was a young child.
When we say something is going around, we mean that many different people seem to be getting this illness or this sickness.
We could talk about the flu is going around, influenza.
Many people are getting sick from it.
In this case, the chickenpox is going around.
Last year it was the measles, meaning last year the disease that was popular, that was going around among the children, was measles.
Measles M-E-A-S-L-E-S, which I believe the more technical name would be rubeola.
It's a disease that also causes fever high temperature fever as well as coughing, red eyes and, like chicken pox, many red spots on the skin.
I'm not sure if I had measles when I was young.
I don't think so.
I don't remember.
It was so many years ago.
So Puneet says that last year the popular disease was measles.
The year before that, it was the mumps.
M-U-M-P-S.
The mumps is another disease. that causes pain in your what we call salivary glands.
It's the part of the body that produces liquid inside of your mouth.
So you often have pain near your ears, and it's technically an inflammation.
That is, it causes it to grow, to swell.
Although I'm not a real doctor.
So if I'm not describing these perfectly and you're a doctor, please don't email and say Jeff no, actually it's well, you get the idea right.
It's not fun.
The mumps.
Did I have the mumps?
I don't remember.
You'll have to ask my mother.
Puneet says, this year it's the chicken pox.
Rebecca says, you sent the kids home, right?
Meaning the children could not stay at the daycare if they were sick, because then other kids would get sick.
Puneet said, yeah, meaning yes, I did send them home.
But today a couple of kids, two or three, looked like they have pink eye and I had to call their parents to let them know.
Pink eye is another disease, another illness that can be caught from one person to another, what we would say a contagious disease.
Its technical name is conjunctivitis, and it is an infection on the white part of your eye.
Your eye actually becomes pink, and it can be quite painful as well.
Rebecca says, what happened to the simple nosebleeds and earaches?
A nosebleed is when blood comes out of your nose and you can't stop it quickly.
Usually it just lasts for a few minutes.
If you hit your nose, you might get a nosebleed.
Earaches are when you have pain in your ears.
Nosebleeds and earaches are not serious illnesses.
They're not serious medical problems.
They are something that children often get.
And that's why Rebecca is saying, what happened to simple nosebleeds and earaches?
She's really saying It used to be kids would only get simple problems, and now it seems the problems are getting worse.
That's sort of the idea of her question.
Puneet says oh, we have kids with those too.
But it's the contagious diseases that really take its toll or that really take their toll.
Contagious means, as I mentioned earlier, that it is easy for the disease to go from one person to another.
A disease is just another name for an illness or a sickness.
When we say something is taking its toll, we mean that it is having a negative impact on something.
It is having a bad effect on something.
Puneet says, strep s-t-r-e-p throat is when you have an infection in your throat that makes it very painful.
I had strep throat more than once when I was a child, I'm pretty sure.
In any case, I was a very sickly child.
You see, I was always sick, it seems.
No, not really, but Just my memory, I think.
You remember the bad things more than the good things sometimes, right?
Anyway, Puneet says, a couple of the really little kids have croup, C-R-O-U-P.
Croup is a more serious illness that makes it difficult for young children to breathe and makes them cough a lot.
Puneet says To immunize I-M-M-U-N-I-Z-E means to protect someone from getting a disease by either giving them a shot of a drug or or having them swallow something that helps their body fight against those diseases if they are exposed to them, if they come in contact with them.
Immunizations are very important for childhood health.
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, there are still many parents who do not immunize their children.
That's dangerous to their children.
It's dangerous to other children.
But we won't talk about that here.
Rebecca says, are you sure you're working in a daycare center?
Puneet says, yeah, why?
Rebecca says because it sounds like you're working for the Center for Disease Control.
The Center for Disease Control is a US government organization or agency whose job it is to investigate diseases and educate people how to prevent them.
It's located in Atlanta, Georgia, and most people know it simply by the initials, the CDC.
Rebecca says, tomorrow I suggest wearing a gas mask to work.
A gas mask M-A-S-K is something that you wear over your mouth and nose, sometimes your eyes, to allow you to breathe, even though you have been exposed to dangerous chemicals in the air.
In World War I.
When both sides in the war in Europe used gas to try to kill or hurt the other side, many of the soldiers would have gas masks to protect themselves so they could breathe without getting sick from the poisonous gas.
Of course Rebecca is making something of a joke here saying that the place the daycare center where Puneet works is so dangerous.
Maybe he should wear a gas mask to work tomorrow.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
You look exhausted.
Another tough day at the daycare center?
Yeah, it was.
This is a record year for the kids getting sick.
The chicken pox is going around.
Last year it was the measles.
The year before that, it was the mumps.
This year, it's the chicken pox.
You sent the kids home, right?
Yeah, but today a couple of the kids look like they have pink eye and I had to call their parents to let them know.
What happened to simple nosebleeds and earaches?
Oh, we have kids with those too, but it's the contagious diseases that really take its toll.
I'm not sure, but I think one of the little kids has strep throat and a couple of the really little kids have croup.
I wish there were a way to immunize all of them from every illness and disease out there.
Are you sure you're working in a daycare center?
Yeah, why?
Because it sounds like you're working at the Center for Disease Control.
Tomorrow, I suggest wearing a gas mask to work.
It's been a record year for wonderful scripts here at ESL Podcast.
That's thanks to the wonderful work by our own Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
