Dime Disease

My kids are sick. And I’m not very bright.

Both the kids had colds last week, normal sniffling and sneezing, nothing to worry about. They both have fair skin, so they look really red whenever they’re the slightest bit flushed.  I noticed on Monday that Bug had a circular rash on her cheek, about the size of a dime. It looked like the eczema that BK gets on his back sometimes, except hers seemed better in the middle and worse around the edges. Weird. What was it? Heat rash? Scratch on her face? I had no idea.

Over the next couple of days, it seemed to be getting worse instead of better, even though I was putting lotion on it every night. I showed The Agent.

“It looks like she has ringworm,” he said.

Oh, no. Not my child. How could my child have ringworm? She’s not dirty, we don’t live in the country… I needed a second opinion.

I called the Kaiser advice nurse, and described Bug’s cheek. “It could be ringworm,” the nurse said. “But she doesn’t need to come in. Just put some anti-fungal cream on the area, and it’ll kill it. And it’s not contagious as long as you’re using the cream.”

Umm… ok. I had no idea what antifungal cream was, but it sounded like you could get it at CVS. Cool. I took Bug to school, planning to buy some cream that evening.

I hadn’t even reached my office yet when the school was blowing up my cell phone. “You need to come get Bug,” the school said. “Do not bring her back without a doctor’s note saying she can come back.

Ugh.

Luckily, the Agent was able to pick up Bug and take her to the doctor, who confirmed that she did indeed have ringworm. I was really upset when the Agent called and told me. I wanted to know which snot nosed kid got their grubby hands on my baby, which child contaminated my sweet angel. And it is apparently very contagious. I felt worms crawling all over me.

I called my dad, because we had been to his house over the weekend, and I wanted to warn them to be on the lookout for rings. “Poor Bug’s got the jock itch, does she?” he said.

“No, Dad. Ringworm.”

“Oh, she’s got the Athlete’s Foot then, eh?”

What??? Is he not hearing me? “No, Dad. Ringworm.”

My Dad chuckled. “Lovely, you know it’s all the same thing, right?”

Silence. What is he saying? “So, you mean… it’s not from an actual worm?”

My dad roared with laughter. I hung up on him, and then got on google. Yep. It’s all the same virus. If it’s on your foot, it’s athlete’s foot. If it’s in you groin area, it’s jock itch. If it’s on your body, it’s ringworm.

This is the dumbest name for a virus I’ve ever heard of.

The Agent also thought it was quite funny. “You didn’t really think our daughter had worms, did you?”

“Well, yeah. You know, tape worm, round worm… ring worm. My mother used to say I couldn’t go outside barefoot because I would get worms. Why wouldn’t I think it came from a worm?”

The Agent was tearing up in an effort to keep from laughing at me. “So, for the 37 years that you’ve been alive, you thought ….”

I blew up. “Yeah, I thought it came from worms, OK? How would I know any different? It’s not like I’ve ever seen anyone with it before! And why would they call it that? They should call it dime disease, or ring rash, or…”

“Oh, Lovely,” The Agent said, giving me a hug. “You’re so cute.”

Ugh. Get off me. I still feel worms slithering all over me.

Scarred for life

I’ve always liked a scar here and there. It adds character. The Agent has a really neat square one on his thigh. See, what happened was that when he was a kid, he was riding a bicycle and got his big toe caught in the bicycle chain. He had to get a skin graft to save the toe, and the doctors pulled the skin from his thigh, creating the square scar. Neat scar, kind of a scary toe though.

I have two scars.

When I was 21, I noticed I had an unsightly blemish over my left eye. I did what any college coed would do-- I picked at it. Then I applied some cover up, and went on my merry way. The next day, I woke up with spots all over my face, chest and back. YIKES!!! I pulled on a sweatshirt and a baseball cap and rushed over to the university medical clinic. I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something. Nope. I had the chicken pox. I spent the next two weeks in agony, but at the end of it all, I only had one scar.




I stopped plucking my eyebrows after that, so the scar would be covered. It’s only in the last year that I realized that the scar was less noticeable than the Sasquatch eyebrows I was sporting.

I obtained my second noticeable scar in late June of 2005. I was on vacation that week, The Agent was at work. I was sick. I had no energy. I was sick to my stomach all the time. I had been trying to get pregnant, and I was hoping that this was reason behind my ailments. If not, I needed some serious medical attention.

The Agent was due to come home in about 30 minutes, so I peeled myself off the couch and tried to do a load of dishes before he arrived. I was scrubbing silverware, lost in thought. Could I be pregnant? Is it too early to take a test? Should I call The Agent? As I was thinking, the knife I was holding slipped out of my left hand and into my right thumb. Blood gushed.

I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my hand before I sank to the floor. The pain really wasn’t that bad, but I was instantly light headed. I crawled across the kitchen to the phone. My towel was already drenched as I called The Agent.

“I don’t want you to freak out,” I told The Agent. “I’m ok. But I cut my hand and it’s bleeding pretty bad and I need you to come look at it.” The Agent said he would be right home.

The Agent chastised me later for not adequately describing how serious this situation was. He was not prepared for the blood bath he walked into. I hadn’t cleaned up the kitchen, so there was still blood all over the sink and the blood soaked towel on the counter. And I was nowhere to be seen.

“Babe?” The Agent called out. “Lovely, where are you?”

I was in the bathroom, laying on the bathroom floor. I had gone in there to get a thicker towel, and it was too difficult to move again.

The Agent took off the towel. He didn’t need to study my thumb long before he said, “Let’s get your shoes on. We need to go to the hospital.”

Ugh. I felt so sick. “I just want to lay down. Can’t you just bandage it?”

“Babe, I’m not a doctor. You about cut your thumb off. I think you need stitches.”

The Agent went to the garage to find our first aid kit in with the camping supplies, and I struggled to put on a pair of flip flops so we could go. He calmly came back in with the first aid kit, wrapped my hand , and we were on our way.

(I didn't realize until the next day The Agent tore the garage up looking for the first aid kit. He was so sweet-- he put on a brave calm face for me, but was in a panic on the inside.)



3 hours and 7 stitches later, we were back home, with a pregnancy test. Positive.

This is why we were going to name Bug Cutter if she had been a boy.

All Sorts of Crazy

So, something moderately creepy happened last week. Or maybe I’m just a little paranoid. I do live in California, after all. There is a lot of craziness going on here.

I was pumping gas early in the morning last week at my local gas station. I had both the kids in the car with me, as I was on my way to take them to daycare and school. I got back in the car while the gas was pumping, so the kids wouldn’t be left alone.

So, Bug and I were chatting, and an old man came up to my window. Not really old, probably older than my dad, younger than my grandfather. Well dressed, not a bum. The man held up a pamphlet and said, “Care to do a little reading throughout your day?” It was one of those Here-is-God’s-Plan books that the Jehovah Witness people put on your doorstep.

Well, since I think I’m so cool and Biblical now (reading the Bible in 90 days-- finished Genesis and Exodus now, on to Leviticus!), and I was feeling very nice, and I was alone at a gas station with my two kids and I didn’t want any trouble, I took the guy’s pamphlet. I said thank you, he walked away, towards what I assumed was his car. I put the leaflet on my passenger seat, finished pumping my gas, and then drove to the McDonald’s drive thru next door, as I had promised Bug we would do. While I was waiting in the drive thru, I thumbed through the little book.

What the????

I couldn’t read any of the words.

It wasn’t in English. Or Spanish, or German, or French, or Arabic, or Japanese. They were English letters, but they were not strung together into any sort of recognizable pattern.

“I can’t even read this thing,” I muttered under my breath.

Meanwhile, Bug was freaking out. “Mommy, who was that man? What did he give you?”

“Just a book, Baby.”

“Throw it away, Mommy.”

“Well, I can’t just throw it away right here. There’s no garbage can. I’ll throw it away when I can.”

“Just open the door and throw it on the ground.” She was really getting worked up over this book. Why was she so crazed over it?

“Honey, I can’t just throw it on the ground. The man who gave it to us might get his feelings hurt. I’ll throw it away at the window when we get our food.” And then I happened to look in my rear view mirror.

Oh, no.

Dude, the guy was RIGHT THERE. In the car behind me, watching everything I did. Oh Lord, what if he was crazy? What if he’s following us, and when he sees that I can’t read the words, he says something crazy like “You are clearly not one of God’s chosen, so now I must throw you and your children in a well.”

I couldn’t throw away the pamphlet with that guy watching.

I purchased Bug’s egg mcmuffin and tore out of there. I was freaked that the crazy religious nut was going to follow me to BK’s daycare. Thank goodness it was super foggy that day, so I knew after two turns he wouldn’t be able to find me (paranoia, anyone?).

Bug was oblivious to the speed chase in my head, but was still complaining about how I hadn’t thrown away the book. “Why didn’t you throw it away, Mommy? You said you were going to throw it away.” Ugh. I get it, Bug. You’re a prophet. I need to throw the devil’s book away. Working on it.

In case you were wondering, I did throw it away. There’s a garbage can outside my office. In it lies 2 soda cans and a McDonald's bag with a crazy no-language pamphlet in it.

I told my girlfriend about my morning adventure, and she wanted to pull the book out from the trash so she could see it. “Maybe you just didn’t recognize the language, maybe it’s in Swedish or Portuguese or something.”

“Look at me,” I answered. “Do I look like I speak Portuguese? No, he gave me the book knowing I wouldn’t be able to read it. But here’s another thing… what if we pull it out of the garbage, and you can read what it says? I don’t want to know that you can read the devil’s words.”

“Oh, Lovely,” my girlfriend sighed. “You really are crazy.”