Monday, March 9, 2009

Death to all parasites!!!

Parasites are the worst thing ever! What falls under the category of parasites? Ticks and Bed Bugs. This past weekend we journeyed up to the Schultz Farm to attend our home church missionary conference. We had a great time seeing old friends and wonderful supporters. Andy did a great job representing the ministry and talking with all the people who had questions. We had decided to sleepover as Andy was asked to share in Sunday School.

Sunday morning Andy came to me and said "Matt has a tick embedded at the hairline in his neck. We need to call the pediatrician to see what to do." Can you believe it? March 7th and we found a tick on our son already!!! Haven't we had enough blood syphoned from our bodies this year? That little tick was really embedded. It took us at least 20 minutes to convince it to let go. Obviously our greatest concern now is Lyme's disease. Jonathan's dog (Andy's brother) was just diagnosed with Lyme's disease as well Jonathan himself and they are both on antibiotics. Thankfully, I already had a doctor's appointment for Matt scheduled this morning because his knee, the one he fractured 3 1/2 years ago, was causing him some pain and I wanted to have it checked out (Diagnosis: tendinitis). We will have Matt tested in about four weeks to see if he has Lyme's and if so he will be put on a course of antibiotics. The good thing is is the doctor said kids are much more treatable than adults and have a better cure rate. Please be in prayer that Matthew does not have Lyme's disease.

When I came home, my husband did not have a happy look on his face. He had been preparing the beds for the exterminator to come and do, what we had hoped, was to be our last treatment. In the course of him taking the boys bunk apart he found a live bed bug. UGH!!! It had been two weeks today since we found a live one. What else can we possibly do? The exterminator is baffled. He has no idea what else can be done. He did a treatment and will check in with us in two weeks to see how we are doing. My biggest disappointment is that we will not be able to declare ourselves bug free before we go on vacation April 30th. We leave in 53 days and you need to wait 55 days. With the way things have been going with this whole situation I would not begin to doubt we would find one on days 54 or 55. That's just the way this thing has seemed to go. I guess we will have to do the guinea pig test while we are gone. You put a guinea pig in the middle of a bed and surround it with glue traps. The idea is that the bed bugs will go after the guinea pig because it puts out a lot of CO2. If you find them on the glue boards, then you still have bed bugs. I guess we'll be acquiring a new pet come April.

I am tired of parasites. They are literally sucking the life out of me. But one thing I realized this weekend is that no matter where you are - they can find you! That became even more real when we met Pastor and Mrs. Haggar. Amy Haggar had a terrible rash all over her body. In talking with her we discovered that they believe they have bed bugs. She had a bite that became infected and had a terrible reaction. They, however, have never found an actually bed bug. THAT has to be even more difficult. I am praying that they don't really have bed bugs, but maybe a spider or two that is causing the bites. They have been dealing with this since November. Please pray for the Haggar family and that their situation would be resolved quickly.

Thank you for all your prayers. They are being heard and I still have a peace. We will get through this. Each day gets better and God is faithful.

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