Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Full Disclosure Agreements or Marry the One You Love but Avoid Assassin Bugs

I have decided, after many years of marriage, that there needs to be a full disclosure form for couples to fill out before they tie the knot.  Something that brings logic into the equation, to balance out the euphoria of being in love.  If I had known some of the things about Bill, I "might" not have married him.  Maybe....  What are these horrible things?  Well, his family has allergies that make the rest of us look odd for not having them.  Food allergies, insect bite allergies, perfume and dye allergies in soaps, hard work allergies.  OK, just joking about that last one.  I am forever telling our children when they sneeze or itch,  "You can thank your father for that."

We have been dealing with bad jet lag from the return trip.   After finally falling asleep, Wednesday    night, early Thursday early morning, Bill was bitten by a bug that walked down his shoulder snacking.  The ensuing welts were huge and painful.  We applied sting-kill and went on.  We also found the bug, whacked it, but left it sitting on a table top, why I'll never know.  Thursday night the bites were painful enough to disrupt his already weird sleep, but by Friday were on the mend.  

Saturday about 4 am, he was bitten again, but the reaction was painful and swift.  Swelling eyes, mouth, throat, with hive around his waist to his upper thighs.  Again we found the bug, the same sort, which ended up flushed down the toilet.  I woke Amy,  asking if she had benadryl, but by the time we returned to our end of the house, Bill was in distress.   Forget the benadryl, we jumped into the car and headed for the hospital.  I put the bug from Thursday into a pill box and took it with us.

While we were registering, a nurse was summoned, who took one look at Bill and said this can be finished in the back.  We were taken  quickly to an  examination room. Bill was starting to
 have spasms in the back of his throat, down the esophagus and his diaphragm.  The meds to stop the reaction were given intravenously, but it still took what seemed to be, a long time for things to start returning to normal.  The nurse looked at the bug and called it an assassin bug or kissing bug.  Google it if you want to be grossed out.

In the end, he was sent home with prescriptions to help his body get over this event.  Plus an epi-pen to use if it happened again without the time to get to the hospital.   Apparently, the side effects of an epi-pen are huge, so best not to use it unless we have to.  Darn it, Amy and I were looking forward to stabbing someone!

What does this have to do with disclosure?  Well, if I had known then what I know now, maybe I would have missed this entire episode by marrying a man who didn't have extreme allergies.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!


Bill about an hour after receiving the meds for allergic reaction.  He was looking much better with his coloring returning to near normal.  Before he was horribly red.

Bill is doing very well and we have an extermination company coming out today to spray the house.  We aren't really thrilled with the use of all those chemicals, but it's better than Bill having  another emergency room visit.






No comments:

Blackness Castle and Linlithgow Palace

Two castle built during the same period, but for completely different uses.  Blackness Castle was a military fort on the Forth of Firth, whi...