Don’t let the bed bugs bite!

I haven’t been as diligent in posting because I have been so busy with school. Summer semester is always a bit more intense because you have the same amount of information to cover in about half the time of normal semesters.

To update before I tell my first story: My ear is doing better. The healing is slow and while it looks GREAT, there is still a small spot where the cartilage was cut out that hurts to the touch. So I still cannot sleep on my right side until that pain is totally gone because when I try to; it gets swollen and inflamed. The doc said it could take 4-5 weeks or more to completely heal, and until then, I need to baby it. It has been 3 weeks as of yesterday.

So my story… here is another crazy one…

Bugs (OF ANY KIND) are my worst fear. I literally fear them more than just about anything. Don’t know what it is, but my theory is because I have had some “run-ins” with bugs in the past and not be able to get them off of me like a person that isn’t disabled. I don’t even like butterflies! Let me rephrase… I like to LOOK at butterflies, but do not want one to land on me. Their bodies are all creepy looking. LOL! About the only bugs I can handle landing on me (without freaking out) are flies or gnats. My #1 fear in the bug category is roaches.

For some reason, I actually have nightmares about roaches. In fact, had one about 3 weeks ago that they were all over my pillow and in bed with me, and I couldn’t get away. LOL!

So my worst fear came true last night.

Down here in Texas we have the American cockroach (not sure what is so “American” about it) but they are also known as water roaches, or Palmetto bugs. Now these are not your every day little roaches that hide in your pantry/cupboards and infest your food. These are BIG MUTHAS!

These can get up to 2 inches in length, and trust me, most of them around here ARE.

So anyway, on to the story. I opened my door to look outside last night and I saw 3 or 4 running around on the driveway. This isn’t abnormal with the amount of heat and rain we have had. But within a minute, 3 to 4 turned in to DOZENS and they all started coming right at me! Now, normally if I move my chair they will scatter away, but this time they didn’t. They were running at me, and FLYING towards me! I hollered for my dad saying, “OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!” Four to five got in to the house before I could get back in. Dad brought the bug spray and he saw what I saw to understand I was not over exaggerating! The ones that got in were even running all over my chinchilla cages and on the floor; He got all of them. Then right outside the door they were running all around my door jam, all over the entrance to my door, and as he was outside trying to kill them, they were flying all around his head! One ended up landing on my head before I got in, but he rescued me. He LITERALLY killed probably 25-30 roaches in a few minutes.

In all of my 32 years of life, I have never seen such a thing. Not to mention, these things are supposed to shun light and my porch light by my door was on, yet they were coming right at me! I have seen these roaches for years, and never seen them almost like swarm, or attack in a sense.

What makes it worse for us is that we have a covered sewer port at the end of our driveway. They live and breed in there primarily. One year, dad had to look in there and there were thousands.

So today he filled up the crack in front of my door with that expandable foam stuff (they liked to hide in there), and bought some outdoor spray. He sprayed the front of the house, all the cracks in the driveway, down the sides of the driveway, and all around (even inside) the sewer port.

Thank God I take Ambien to go to sleep that night because if not, I would have never been able to fall asleep. Gives me the “creepy crawlies” just thinking about it. It was straight out of a horror movie!