Friday, October 2, 2015

The house that keeps on giving

A few months ago, my son came us with a lot of little red bumps that we initially thought were some sort of bug bites. Steve and I were not getting bitten, though, and when we checked in his room, we couldn't find anything. We thought maybe they were fleas, since we knew we had had them in our room, and they're pretty hard little buggers to spot, so we set off a flea bomb in his room. This led to a stressful afternoon, because, unknown to us, the silly cat had sneaked into his room before we set off the fogger. She was ok. But the red bumps did not go away. In fact, they got worse.

I made an appointment with the doctor who made his diagnosis: rash. He prescribed steroids, said to call back if it didn't clear up, and sent us on our way. I kind of miss when doctors would offer a lolly pop to good patients, but oh well.

The steroids weren't working. I was almost to the point of calling and scheduling another exam because the rash wasn't going away!

This morning, at some unholy hour of before sunrise, because my son is a morning person, oh yay, he comes in our room saying something about bugs. My son is a morning person, we are not. It was a while before I was awake enough to actually look at his bed. And oh sweet mother, no.

Cue the dramatic music, dim the lights, the squeamish should exit the building: bed bugs. A huge infestation of bed bugs. Hundreds of the freaking things!

Steve set to work bagging up everything, and vacuuming. I had a dentist appointment. (Two huge fillings and I go back week after next for the third. I hurt a bit at the moment. Be sure to take good care of your teeth, kids!)

On my way home from the dentist I stopped by Wal-Mart and got battle ready: mattress cover, box spring cover, new pillow, bed bug spray... I wanted to get some sticky traps that you put at the corner of the bed to stop them from spreading and to be able to gauge if they've gone away. I wanted to put some of them all over the house to make sure they haven't infiltrated the rest of the house, but the store didn't have any. I might wind up going into town sometime to one of the bigger home stores and hopefully find some.

I am a little glad that we found them and can start treating them. My son was really starting to drive me crazy talking about the bumps: "Maybe we could get my DNA tested to see if that's why I have them." Honestly, there are times I have no idea what is going through that head of his. DNA?

At the same time, I'm very disturbed that the doctor didn't catch it. Looking at photos online of what bed bug bites look like, it's pretty obvious that's what this is. This is just further proof that you're so much better off taking charge of your health rather than trusting doctors.

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