This week has been somewhat insane for the Wearden family.
I had been looking forward to Monday morning for a while. Gabriel had been home for a whole week BEFORE break; then we took the long road trip to Arkansas for a week and the long journey home. It felt like I had been chasing kids for 14 days straight and I was ready for them to go back to school.
Gabriel was so excited to go back, pulling on his backpack himself to get on the bus at 6.45. Michael ushered the other two to the car to drop off on his way to work.
Tula and I settled down with a blanket, my coffee, and a (non-dairy) yogurt parfait to enjoy our peace…
And my phone rings.
Emerald had forgotten her PDM at home, and her nurse needed new test strips. It is ten till seven.
Michael is still in the car so he swings back by to get it; I run the PDM out. They’ve got enough test strips for today, so I can pick some more up and send them tomorrow.
It is 8 and time for Tula’s lantus; while I’m trying to wrestle her into sitting still, my phone rings again—Gabe’s school.
I answer it distractedly and put it on speaker phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey Andie, this is the nurse. Gabriel has a rash.”
I have Tula pinned down, sandwiched between my legs and under one arm while I hold an exposed needle aloft. Luckily today she finds this amusing rather than infuriating; she is squirming and laughing, interpreting the pinches to her chubby thighs as tickles instead of site preparation.
“Hmmm. A rash”, I say, rather intelligently.
“Yes, it is all over his neck and on his face and torso.”
“That sounds…” I finally get a pinch of excess thigh and inject the insulin. Tula screeches in furious anger, bucking for the full ten seconds I have to keep the needle in. One shot down, one to go.
“Yeah, you’ll need to come get him.”
“....right. ….why again?”
This poor, long- suffering nurse finally gets through to my distracted brain. I abandon my untouched coffee and uneaten parfait, dress myself and the baby, and get us in the car.
Tula had a doctor’s appointment that morning scheduled for 10 because she had a circular rash that looked like ringworm. It had started while we were on vacation; the oncall nurse advised we start over-the-counter antifungal and bring her in when we got back, but the rash had worsened considerably. It now spanned most of her abdomen and was causing her some distress.
I called my sister Amber (who works at the pediatricians office) and ask if we could sneak Gabriel in, too. It is turning out to be a rather rashy Monday.
We drive the 15 minutes across town (it is a rather small town) and walk into the front office...just in time for a Fire Drill.
Ushered back into the foyer to wait out the drill before we can retrieve my son, I hear over a staff member’s walkie-talkie that there is a child reluctant to leave the classroom. We end up staying there for thirty minutes for the situation to resolve itself.
Gabriel sees me and his eyes fill up with tears, babbling soft protests. He was so excited to be back at school, and didn’t know why Mommy was coming to get him.
He went with me, dejected but without fight.
I decide we deserve a treat—coffee and bagel from Starbucks before our appointment. It seemed to brighten everyone’s mood.
The doctor sees Tula first and says her rash is caused by eczema; not uncommon in children with food allergies. She instructs me on how to treat it (grease the baby up multiple times a day with this cream) and examines Gabriel.
It is in patches all over and looks like hives; could be caused by a virus or allergies. Give him some Zyrtec and Benadryl until it clears up.
He was cleared to go back to school after the appointment, but we had lab orders from the geneticist as well as annuals from his pediatrician, so I decide to keep him out and try to get those handled.
Now, there are two important things for you to know about Gabriel:
- He has a remarkably high pain tolerance, and
- He really, REALLY hates to be restrained.
Because he is on these medicines for the symptoms of his autism, he has to have annual blood work. It has consistently been a living nightmare, for both us and the poor phlebotomists trying to do their job. He fights and kicks and screams and headbutts and pulls the needle out because he doesn’t want to be held down. If we don’t hold him down, he won’t let them stick him and we can’t get the lab work done.
Needless to say, we had been looking for reasons to put it off.
I pick up Michael on his lunch break to go to Quest Diagnostics. Somehow we have to get him to stay still long enough to get 7 vials of blood, and we aren’t certain how to do it.
As much as we were dreading this, it was, by far and away, the best blood work we have ever gotten with Gabriel.
This clinic is where we go to get the girls a1c done every three months so they already know us and we know and trust them. I set Tula up watching Wiggles on my phone and eating Cheerios on a seat behind me. Michael sits by Gabriel, holding his legs, trunk, and left arm; a phlebotomist is holding the right arm still. I stand in front of him with a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans (so sorry, Emerald—Mom will replace your candy!!), popping jelly beans into his mouth one right after another while the second phlebotomist deftly fills all seven vials.
Michael and I both walked away completely amazed that it worked this time so smoothly. Every other time, equipped much in the same way or with a screen for him to watch, we still walked away having had to try several times to get the needle in, one of usually has bruises on our legs where he’s kicked us or on our face where he’s slammed his head back. It really was a testament to how excellent these women were at their jobs. Thanking them profusely, we leave to the rest of our week.
Tuesday was relatively quiet, a blissful reprieve before things got wacky again. I deep cleaned the guest bathroom and organized the diaper closet. It was a good day.
Wednesday, I decided to keep the cleaning and organizing train rolling by tackling Emerald’s room. I had those cool black thermal curtains from her room in the old house we hadn’t hung up yet, and this pretty scrap fabric I was going to fancy up her desk and nightstand with. She was going to be so excited when she saw it!
I had been cleaning in there for about a half an hour when I took the curtains down—the ones that came with the house that we had just left up.
They were absolutely, visibly infested with bedbugs.
With more calm than I thought I could muster, I placed the curtains in a box, taped the box up securely, and threw it in the trash. I then drove Tula down to the playground at the church to play. Internally, I was screaming one long sustained note of horror.
Bugs are not my favorite.
There had been a moment a while back where we thought we might have bed bugs. We called an exterminator to come and check; he said he didn’t see any evidence of them, but to call him back if we did. Just in case, I had pulled all the bedding and our clothes and fabric furniture coverings and stuffed animals, washing them in hot water and drying them in very high heat.
I don’t mess around with bugs, yall.
Still, we didn’t see any evidence of bed bugs. Emerald’s room took on this odd smell; I really didn’t care for it at all, but we couldn’t find the source of the smell.
Then Gabe had that rash on Monday. It was probably bed bug bites.
Michael called the landlord who said to trash all the curtains and he’d buy new ones, as well as send out an exterminator to check the house. It was a generous offer.
We sealed off Emerald’s room and had her sleep on the couch for the night.
The next day, skin crawling with the idea that creepies have made their nest here in my dream house, I tried to get as much done as I could. I addressed some more Christmas cards and got them in the mail. Played outside with Tula. Rather a lot, actually. It was easier not to think about in the yard, and it was a pretty day.
At four, pest control showed up. They immediately declared Emerald’s room infected, then checked across the hall. My room and bathroom seemed clean. Slowly, they made a sweep of the house before giving me the bad news:
The whole house was infested.
They were visible in the ceiling everywhere, even the bathroom, except my room. It was going to have to be a aggressive full house treatment where the family has to move into a hotel for a few days, after we had completed a pretreatment preparation list he provided.
It was brutal. The protocol called for us to trash “anything you don’t love” that’s made out of fabric—curtains, clothes, stuffed animals, pillows, bedding—should be trashed. Our mattresses, which we had been meaning to replace anyway as they were three-time hand-me-downs in now shameful shape, had to go. Couches, chairs, with fabric covers he said should go because anywhere a bed bug could hide threatened re-infestation after treatment. Anything we wanted to keep had to be washed in hot, hot water and dried on the highest heat setting, immediately put in a black garbage sack and tied off, then put somewhere safely away. Besides that we had to move anything we wanted to keep to the middle of the floor, vacuum everywhere, including baseboards, and clear off shelves.
The treatment alone was very costly and would need two follow-ups.
Michael talked again to our landlord who said he was coming out to check out the house and talk to pest control. We would need to do everything to prepare the house, but he would cover the treatment and a hotel for us. He also offered to give us our deposits and rent back so we could move.
Our first choice is to stay. We love our house. We love the neighborhood.
Friday, Michael took off work and we worked as hard as we could from early in the morning until dinner time, but we got it all done. We paid exorbitantly for someone to haul off our mattresses and most of our furniture. We filled four dumpsters with our belongings. We scrubbed and cleaned and moved things until it looked like we were just moving in. My cats went to stay with my sister, and my brother kept the dog. Mom came and got Emerald and Benjamin.
Exhausted, we came and checked into a hotel in town.
The landlord will be here today to go look at the house. If all goes well, we can go back Tuesday.
What is amazing to me is how this hideous calamity happened...but we were able to weather it. Sure, things might be tough for a while, and we’ll be back to sitting on the floor (again).
But God is faithful. He provided for us abundantly, and we believe that He will continue to do so. This year has been a catastrophe, from ringing in the New Year at the hospital with Tula in DKA to losing my beloved Daddy… this bug situation just felt like par for the course. Through it all, our family and friends have surrounded us with love and support, blessing us with their community.
So, as I lay here in a hotel bed with Gaby on one side and Tula on the other, watching Veggie Tales “Jonah” for the umpteenth time, I am not stressed, and I do not worry. I will move as God asks me to move, and I will trust that He will do as He has always done—taken care of the Wearden family.
—Andie
