According to this site, bed bugs come from all over the world. They can even go up to a YEAR without feeding and still survive. Ok, that's just creepy. The site even mentions that if your neighbor sprays for them, they can crawl around and come visiting to YOUR house. Talk about an unwanted guest!
Head lice. With children around it seems like the chances of having an opportunity to deal with head lice is pretty good. Kids share everything, and the little nits travel from one host to the next through hats, combs, brushes, or just from finger contact. Getting rid of head lice seems to be a little easier than bed bugs, but still no fun. My closest encounter with head lice came when I was nannying one summer. I got to take the three young ones to town. It was going to be a great adventure! The oldest one was going to get her hair permed, something she was SO excited to do. The other two and myself were going to go shopping while said hair was getting curly. We dropped off the first one at the fancy salon, and had just gotten started with our shopping when I was paged over the store intercom. (this is WAY before any cell phone life)
I went to the customer service desk to answer the page. I had a phone call. Ooookay. Who would be calling me - and know where I was? Well, it was the sweet thing that was trying to get her long awaited perm. Head lice had been found on her, and I was asked to come get her right away. Um, WHAT?? I was still pretty young myself. The idea of dealing with bugs in someone else's hair just about sent me over the edge. I called the mother - and explained the entire situation. She was almost as excited as I was over the entire adventure before us. I stopped at the local drug store on the way home, got enough RID and whatever else the pharmacist recommended to do a small army.
I'll be honest, I did have concerns about the lice getting in my car. But, when the other two kids starting singing and chanting "you've got cooties" to the devastated sibling - I had to be the adult. They were reprimanded appropriately. We all got in the car, and upon arrival at home a thorough hair washing began for every person in the house. And all the bedding got washed, the laundry ran non stop for quite some time. When someone tells you that you are being "nit-picky" - I assure you that you are looking for some small hard to find things!
Ring worm? Well, it isn't even a real worm. It is a fungus that grows in a circular pattern, so it gets called ringworm. I guess at one point in history it was thought to be caused by a worm, but that wasn't really the case.
Had an up close adventure with that, too. My three kids got to spend some time one summer at the farm with some family members. When they got home they had all sorts of stories to tell - they had had so much fun playing with the animals. ESPECIALLY the baby kittens. Mind you - no one living at the farm had any symptoms/signs of ringworm. Did you know that you can be immune to it? A couple of weeks later one of my daughters had a circular patch of hair all fall out off her head. Front and center mind you. Off to the pediatrician we went. Found out what we thought were mosquito bites on her arms and legs were just more ringworm patches showing up - the one on her scalp was the biggest. Oh, and as an added bonus it is highly contagious. WHAT?? Lots of anti-fungal cream later -- on anyone in the family that looked like there may be a "spot" - and life went back to normal. Or, at least what we call normal around here.
Leeches and ticks. Yup - have a story for those, too. I grew up living next to the Platte River in Nebraska. My folks owned a stretch of river ground, and I spent a LOT of time swimming in the river and the lake (sandpit) in my growing years. Truly enjoyed it! We always had a dog and the dog was an outside dog. I used to help my mom and dad pull the ticks off the dog in the summer. Sometimes the blood-suckers would get as large as a grape! And, just when you think it couldn't get any more gross - the dumb dog would EAT the ticks almost as fast as we could pull them. Nasty. Well, when my kids were little they would go spend time with the grandparents each summer. Since I had survived it, I knew they would, too. Ticks would happen - no biggie, we just pulled them off. Then, something different happened.
One of my sweet young children came back from swimming and as the outside "wash off" was happening a foreign item showed up in the bathing suit bottoms. Initially thought it was just some sort of crud from the lake that got trapped in the suit, but it didn't wash or brush off. Upon a little closer inspection... wait for it.... we realize it was a LEECH! Ok, so try not to freak out when you find something like THAT on your kid's private parts! And, did you know that when you pull off a leech in a total panic that you will cause the skin to bleed? A lot? Not a fun place to be bleeding! It did give a great story for the child to share about the "blood suckers" that lurk in the water at grandma's house, though. Sigh.
I find myself wondering if God created these parasitic creatures, or if they are a result of sin and being tossed out of The Garden. If God created them, then I wonder why. There isn't a hard and fast answer, but I do know that God created. And, that what He created was good. Psalm 104 tells us that God created all the creatures of the world:
24 How many are your works, LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
I praise Him that he created. Even the things that make my skin crawl.
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