What’s Bugging You?

It must be Spring I mused, examining the crop of weeping vesicles on my right posterior thigh. I tried not to scratch. Spring is when my beloved husband, Kenny, moves from spending most of his waking hours inside the shop to outside in the dirt. He is not as sensitive to the oils from poison oak as I am. Even doing his laundry leaves me vulnerable. Where did I put the Technu?

When that rash was finally drying up and starting to scab over, I noticed three smaller red dots forming a linear pattern on my left thorax. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. The saying I had learned at the clinic where I completed a dermatology rotation as a fourth-year med student echoed in my mind, followed by the working diagnosis of… bed bugs. I stared at the new rash again.  Bed bugs?!? My skin started to crawl. I bristled. Not because I was above bed bugs. Ok, there is that. But the last time I had an encounter with bed bugs, I ended up with a reprimand from HR. I was only trying to defend the dignity of the bed bug victim. It’s a long story. I shook my head and moved on to the second diagnosis in my differential of localized, pruritic rashes: contact dermatitis.

The new laundry detergent my husband had bought may have been too harsh for my delicate skin. I was having an allergic reaction to it. I stripped the bed, washed the sheets in hot water and vinegar, and shoved the ridiculous notion of bed bugs way down on my list of differential diagnoses. The huge hassle that would ensue to get rid of them was too much to think about just now.

I slept fitfully that night, uncomfortable in my own skin. I itched everywhere. My husband was skeptical and underwhelmed watching me strip the bed again the next morning. “I don’t have a rash,” he reasoned.

“Well, you did not get poison oak either,” I said curtly as I shoved the sheets in the washing machine and poured in the hypoallergenic detergent I made him buy.  In any case, we were headed to Texas for a week to help my mom’s big move. Whatever was causing my new rash would be gone by the time we got back.

The work of packing and moving and an unexpected night in the ER with Mom completely eliminated all physical – and mental – traces of  skin irritation .

Home again Tuesday, we were in bed by midnight. I was exhausted from flight delays and thinking about working the next day and fell fast asleep. The alarm went off way too soon, but I was determined to jump right back into my exercise routine. I hit the showers by 7 streaking past the bathroom mirror. What did I see out of the corner of my eye? Was I imagining things now? A new rash very similar to the last one, on the other side of my rib cage.

I freaked.  The bed bug hypothesis marched back into full view and sent my hysteria into full throttle. This time everything was put in bags, and I begged my husband to call the exterminator. He easily capitulated and then made no fuss when I suggested we sleep upstairs, in a different bed, with sheets that had never been washed in the alleged offending detergent. The exterminator came and went without finding a trace of anything malevolent. Still, I fed the dryer like it was a voracious cookie monster, but instead of cookies, I fed it loads and loads of bedding which it spit out after churning them through the highest heat possible.

That Saturday morning, as per usual, I met with my accountability partner. When I hesitantly showed her my rash and recounted my story, she matter-of-factly remarked, “Looks like spider bites to me.”

Instantly, my dread, fear, and shame disappeared. “Oh…right…spider bites…of course.”

She chimed in again. “By the way, why are you afraid of bedbugs?”

Good question. And we started exploring. It was an eye-opening conversation and a healing opportunity.

The mind can be a funny thing. Our thoughts can get the best of us. I am glad for the safe people in my life who are not afraid to tell me what they see, especially when I get stuck in one point of view.

Those safe friends and family help me process thoughts and feelings, discover their source, differentiate them from reality, so I can deal with them in a healthy way.

My sessions with patients at OWW enter this kind of gentle, grace-giving exploration. And I am so glad to offer patients coaching with our Certified Health and Wellness coaches, Rachelle Mathios and Meghan Hess. They are both highly skilled in this self-discovery approach to lifestyle change. With genuine curiosity, they ask honest, probing questions which help people know themselves better. Why don’t you like to cook? When did you start believing you did not have time for yourself? Why is it selfish to take care of your needs? What does it mean that you gained weight this month? They reflect what they see and give positive, nonjudgement feedback.

Sometimes the questions get to the place where we feel uncomfortable in our own skin. But if we delve into the discomfort, staying honest and vulnerable, this kind of adventure frees us from old patterns of thinking and doing to discover new ones that change our health and our lives.