complicated lives 33

Ringworm and pinkeye

I was fairly pest free as a child..sure I had the errant pinworm, or chigger...but I was a relatively clean child.  My friends all had exotic crap like sandworms, or roundworms...some even got ringworm and pink eye!!  I was terrified of mange and of course....dreaded lice!!

I finished my eventless childhood with very few gross things happening.  :(  Shucks!!

Enter my teens.  I had some reaction to a button on a pair of jeans.  My Mom and I thought it was dry skin, or a nickel allergy ( never had one before)...It was later decided...I had......RINGWORM!  Yay!!  My first disgusting infestation!  Then I found out it was just a fungus thing and not a real worm....bummer.  Though still ringworm, I was expecting the dramatic extraction/extinction of a worm.

Enter my job at the elementary school...I have covered this under the incurable strain of lice in an earlier post but it bears revisiting.  Also It bears repeating that NOT all people are allergic to the bite, thus the tell tale itching never occurs.  People near you can be literally CRAWLING with lice, yet not one of them will ever scratch.  You hug a friend good-bye, hello, hold their hair as they vomit on your shoes....holy heck, you now have lice!!

Pinkeye entered my life post child.  Yes, they are small germ factories.  My son got sick, he was roughly an inch long and still quite cute. Torrents of mucus were erupting from his nose likely reaching 10 feet in length, snot bubbles abounded. his eyes looked mucus-y..he was a disgusting little mess that day!  Off we trotted to the happy pediatrician.  I got medicine and a  stack of towels to take care of my slime producing child.  The next day I had a horrible headache, itchy painful eye and felt not so great.  I let it go.  The next day I looked hideous!  I took myself (and my now pink cherubic child) to my doctor...who quickly diagnosed me with pinkeye...oh...conjunctivitis! The doctor not the child diagnosed me.  Although I am sure he played some part because his eyes looked yucky before and he had some eye goo going on too.

I have now had most odd childhood gross things....still no sandworms or roundworms...Thank heavens especially for the latter! Those suckers look NASTY!