Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Damn You, West Nile!

I have truly lost my mind! We have a west nile problem here in Northern Cal and all the hype and media attention surrounding it has made me totally paranoid and crazy. Not that all of this hype is unwarranted. There's a lot of dead birds that have been found around the area that were infected with the virus. They have also found horses infected with west nile, and now farmers have to inoculate the horses as preventative measures. Horses! Why do horses have a vaccine and not humans? The problem has gotten so bad, that they are now doing aerial and ground spraying in the area to kill the adult mosquitoes. Anyway, with all of this going on I am convinced that I constantly have the west nile virus. Every mosquito bite or any insect bite that itches, it's west nile. Recently my neck hurt, so it must mean that I have meningitis from the west nile virus. I had a headache...west nile! My allergies were acting up which gave me a case of the itchies, but it has to be west nile, since a rash is one of the symptoms. Not that I had a rash, mind you, but I itched and therefore had the virus! It was hot out and I was having trouble breathing, but it wasn't my asthma...it's west nile! Yes, this is my sick and twisted train of thought lately. You know, I could stub my toe and still blame the west nile virus, because it caused me to walk funny in the first place in order for me to stub my toe! Every paranoid delusional thought that I have about the virus, I share with my husband and of course he laughs at me because I am being ridiculous. Last night I told him, "you know, one of these days I will REALLY have the west nile virus, and you'll be sorry!" I was only half joking, but what's that all about?! Am I really that paranoid and retarded that I have to actually dare the virus to infect me? And if I did ever get infected, would I think it was funny to say, "see I told you so"? So in an effort to solve my mosquito problem/paranoia, I picked up a keychain that emits a sound to drive away mosquitoes. The problem is that the sound that it emits is not only irritating to mosquitoes, but to EVERYONE! It makes an annoying "eeeeeeee" sound that is high pitched, but not exactly inaudible. I've only used it once because it's so irritating and has sat in my purse since. We have OFF bug sprays, but I'm not exactly thrilled with having chemicals on my skin almost 24/7. I bought some organic bug balm from the Co-op one of the last few times that we were there. It's easy to use where you just rub it on and smooth it in (says it's good for the skin), but it leaves you smelling like a citronella candle. Bleh! Not exactly an attractive scent! So now I'm back to square one, scratching, paranoid and wondering if it's because of the west nile virus. Hmm...is paranoia a symptom of the virus?

2 comments:

Jodi said...

Stac, Avon sells a mosquito repellant/sunscreem that smells okay and works pretty well. It even has a "disappearing blue" one. Don't wear perfumes or smelly lotions and try to hang around with younger people. Mosquitos like young blood better. =)

So protect your kids!)

As for the paranoia, remember at PE once when you thought that bee was specifically chasing you and only wanted to sting YOU?
LOL!

Jodi said...

Um, I meant "sunscreen" not "sunscreem." Time to go to bed.

Consuella