An Invisible Enemy

 

Well....where were we? Oh, yeah. Sick Pup. Five vet visits and $1000 dollars worth of meds and treatments later and we finally have an answer-from our family doctor. Why our family doctor? Because The Mister and I are also sick. We look like we have small pox but we don't. We have sarcoptic mange and so does Pup. After we were diagnosed with scabies it all made sense. We can't have human scabies because thanks to Covid we haven't had a bit of human contact in months but we have been in contact with one very itchy dog.

We are now all one week out of treatment but we are all still pretty miserable. It's like having poison ivy over your whole body. You itch until you shake. We can't sleep. You don't want to eat. You feel sick.  We take lots of showers scrubbing the mite debris off our bodies. It is so gross and it can take up to 4 weeks after treatment for the intense itching to stop. Ugh.

Poor Pup. We kept her confined in her stroller and made her wear a cone for THREE MONTHS while she was being eaten alive by mites. Eventually those mites found their way onto us and all that weird "winter itching" and hives we were having made sense. We changed soap, diet, everything to figure out what was going on. I even blamed the new floor because it all started while we were putting it down. 

So.......how did our vets miss this? I don't know but I am pi$$ed about it. Pup's lost so much hair and weight. Her little legs and her face are almost bare. It's so sad to see her this way and we can't even touch her to comfort her without gloves or protective gear on. Treatment is simple but it takes 58 days for the medicine to kick in and kill all the mites on all the animals inside and out. The Mister and I have a cream we apply from head to toe every two weeks but we are still considered highly contagious until the end of those 58 days as we keep passing the mites back and forth with the critters. It looked like a scene from Outbreak when we showed up at the vets with the critters for their pills. They were ready for us and took every precaution. For the next two months we can only do virtual visits. 

In the meantime we have to bag up everything we can't wash. That means the couches, chairs and mattresses are all covered in plastic too. We can't have skin to skin contact with anything we can't boil or douse with bleach. We can't even get in the car because we have cloth seats. It's pretty uncomfortable living. We get up at dawn from a mostly sleepless night and work all day vacuuming and scrubbing everything in sight over and over. We are exhausted. 

Our washing machine can't hold a hot enough temperature so we drag pots of boiling water down to the downstairs bathroom where we soak all the linens and clothes until we get them in the wash. They have to be 125 degrees for at least 10 minutes to kill the buggers. 

The very worst part is the Lime Sulpher shampoo, dip and cream the critters get slathered with. It smells to high heaven and it got too cold to bath anyone outside. It also turns everything yellow. 

Luckily, only one cat seems to be having symptoms so poor Dexter got his first bath ever. He took it pretty well but I don't think he's forgiven me. 

One week down and seven to go. It means I will miss the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival again this year but that's okay. I can't even think about woolly stuff right now. The itch is too bad. 

So this is why I am MIA. All my projects are bagged up to kill the mites and I don't want to re-infect them. I'm too miserable to want to do anything but binge TV and nap when I get the chance. I'll post when I have some positive progress to share. Right now, I'm still waiting for a sign that we've turned a corner....