"I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell"

Ah, Wednesday. Means 5 o'clock, Friday is almost in sight. Good thing too, I'm wore smoooooth OUT. Ready for a couple days out of this confinement I call a schedule. Good gosh, is a mom's work ever done?? All this risin' and shinin' at 5:30 in the morning (okay, 6:10, usually) and not hittin' the bed again until 11 or later is catchin up with this momma. But how else do you get it all done in a day?

To make matters more tiring, I have been waking up around 3 every morning itchy. I mean ITCHY. My arms and legs, mostly. I could seriously scratch until there is no skin left. Annoying, to say the least and enough to drive a sleep deprived woman over the edge. No itchiness during the day...only in the middle of the night. Grrr. So, I googled my problem yesterday and found a variety of possibilities...none of which were very comforting. The things that sleep with us and are beyond our scope of vision....ugh, I shudder now just thinking about the pictures I saw. Little skin chewing, repulsive creatures that I didn't know really existed. "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite." What a cute, sweet, fairy-tale type saying. Never imagined it was a reality. Until yesterday, that is. Google it, I dare you but prepare yourself for the horror of what you'll find....

Now, rationally, I know that since all this itching only began a couple of weeks ago it has to be more than a sudden invasion of a bed bug infantry. According to the information I gathered about them, we've all (meaning you too!) been good n cozy with them all our lives. I change the sheets on my bed quite often, flip and rotate the mattress as directed even. These routines may help but will not altogether stop the bugs from prowlin' around in your bed. They're after blood, not your dirty sheets. Ugh! This newly acquired knowledge, however, did NOT stop me from ripping every shred of linen off the beds when I got home yesterday and hot water-lysol-bleaching every thread like a tweakin' crack fiend and then runnin' em thru' the dryer on the hottest setting even long after they were dry. (FRY, ya little nasty things, fry!) Didn't stop me from lysol-bleaching the mattresses and box springs either. Oh, and the pillows and even the curtains ( just to be on the safe side) got a good dousing too. So, we most definitely slept sanitarily if not chemically intoxicated last nite. Gas masks for everyone!! When I'm on a roll, it's hard to stop me. (P.S. I didn't find even ONE of these allegedly common critters during my deep cleaning spree but I felt better, nonetheless.)

I did not wake up itchy at 3...yay! But seriously...I know this is not the source. I'm the only one being affected and it makes no sense that bed bugs would be choosy about whom they wish to devour or that they would suddenly, after years and years of residing with me, find my skin so appealing.

So, I wonder....can one suddenly become allergic to soaps, shampoos, detergents, softeners? I've used the same ones for years, doesn't add up. But I did change detergent about a week ago, just to be sure. No cigar, the itching continued.

Next ponder: could I be having an abrupt change in my hormonal balances which could be causing my skin to crawl?? I'm sure my hormones change on a daily basis, considering my mood swings, but since some mornings I awake to very small, red, rash like marks on my skin, I'm thinkin' that's not it either.

"Is it stress related?", I've asked myself. For pete's sake, my life has certainly been more stressful than it is now so how can that be? "Am I losing my ever-lovin' mind?", I have even wondered. Especially after my adventures last night...can you say obsessive compulsive disorder five times, fast??

I'm at a loss, an absolute loss. I am grateful for my almost uninterrupted night of sleep tho'. I shall continue on, hopeful that if the culprit was some sort of chewing organism, it was blasted off the face of the earth by the spray bottles of chemicals that are my arsenal.