fire alarms and beetles.

The excitement started last week when we had some of Olive's nurses over for dinner. We were all just beginning to enjoy dinner together when I started to smell something burning. As you may already be aware, pregnant women have an exceptional sense of smell compared to the average human. Nobody else seemed to smell it but me, but about 2 minutes later the fire alarm started blaring in our apartment building.

There are 24 stories in our building and we are the 18th. Rusty's first response was, "Lynette, you can't come! Stay here and I'll go check it out first" to which my response was, "No way! I'd rather have the baby today than burn alive!" He agreed that was sensible and we went on our way. As we walked past the 11th floor smoke was billowing out of the hallway and startled people were running in all directions. 

After reaching the bottom of the stairs we hung out with all of the other tenants for the next four hours until everything was under control. Later we heard through the grapevine that someone had been smoking on their bed and their mattress had caught on fire. 

In the end it was a really fun night meeting lots of other tenants in our building. I had some contractions for an hour after making it to the bottom, but they subsided after I was able to lie down. My legs were also sore a few days later, but this again felt nice after feeling like a human sloth for the last 2.5 months.

Moving on to our next story of excitement for the week...

Last Thursday Rusty got a strange red blotch under his eye, and two days later I developed a matching one. Over the next few days mine started to blister and leak fluid (very attractive). Then I started getting more painful blisters on my fingers, my side, and on my leg. At this point I started to freak out a bit and research what this could possibly be. 

After reading about shingles online I was convinced I had it. The symptoms I read about were...

1) Fluid filled vesicles (little blisters) only on one side of your body.

2) Not itchy, but very painful.

3) The blisters usually follow your nerve endings, so show up a band or a strip

ALL of which I had. Then I was started reading about shingles and how dangerous is was for a pregnant mothers, and how birth should be prolonged for at least  5-21 days of a breakout. 

I continued to read startling things like, "it can be fatal for a newborn baby to be born while the mother is having an outbreak because the baby can contract chicken pox at birth and their immune systems are too weak to fight off an infection this strong," and "shingles near your eyes can be very dangerous, even with risks of becoming blind" and "you must go to the doctor within three days of symptoms so that medication can be given in time to treat it"...all very reassuring facts. 

Rusty was in Chiang Rai for the weekend, and every time we talked on the phone we both were getting a little more nervous that my symptoms were continuing to worsen rather than getting better. As soon as he arrived back on Monday morning we headed over to the hospital. 

When we walked in to see the dermatologist she briefly glanced at our faces and my hands, and patiently waited for some silence to talk, while I nervously went on explaining our symptoms and my self-made diagnosis of shingles. Her first response was, "Well, good news. It's not shingles, it's bug bites." 

I went on to make sure she understood all of my symptoms such as the oozing blisters,  that it's only on one side of my body, that it in the pattern of a line...and blah blah blah. Her next response was, "it's just a beetle bite." 

She then showed us pictures on google images of this little black and red beetle that she was certain had bitten us. 

I told her that I was on bed rest and that I never get to leave my room, and wondered how it was possible that I had been bitten by this bug? She looked at me for the 14th time and said, "It's a beetle bite. No need to worry."

At this point I am quickly becoming (and rightly so) one of her most annoying patients ever--especially in a culture where people rarely question a word the doctors say. 

When we left her office I was feeling very relieved that she didn't think it was shingles and still   convinced we needed a second opinion. Rusty kept telling me to just let it go, and reminding me that she is the dermatologist, not me. 

I was still feeling cynical throughout the day until in the evening when I was lying on the bed and low and behold there was a little devil bug crawling on my bed that looked EXACTLY like the pictures she had shown me!!!!

I have never been so happy to see a little bug in all my life. It was confirmed that I did not have shingles and that I had just been attacked in my sleep by this dirty little creature. 

Pretty crazy that after living for four years in Chiang Rai, we've never been bitten by a bug like this one, and then we move to the big city and we are attacked by this sneaky little beetle. 

So folks, those are my exciting points of last week.  Who knew that fire alarms and beetles could bring me so much excitement. Although it doesn't take much to feel exciting these days.