Another Nightmare

So last Sunday I wrote: "On the positive, I won't have to run anywhere at the drop of a hat this year, I can rest and recover at home and hopefully pull out of this extended crash/relapse."  So much for being positive/optimistic and thinking I would have some time to rest and recover.


On Monday my dad was here (he stops by most days) and said he needed to flip his sheets around because of all the little blood marks.  I reminded him AGAIN that he has two sets of sheets and could take the dirty ones off and put them in the laundry and put the clean set on.  He said, "Oh no, I will just flip the bloody section from the head to the feet."


So despite feeling so horrible I had thoughts of wanting to die running through my head, I dragged myself over to his place to change his sheets.  Then I noticed bugs on his bed and the skirt of his bed (I won't go into gory details but three phases of bugs including larvae).  It turns out there was a bed bug infestation in his bed/suite and he's been a feeding ground for them for months!!


Next, I reported said infestation to the staff and was told immediately much of the issue is the renter's responsibility.  I was too weak to even lift a bag and was told "then find some help".  Being mostly home-bound I have few friends, and my roommate/best friend was away.  My 86 year old dad had to haul garbage bags full of clothes (everything fabric in the suite except the bed and coverings which were disposed) out to the car.  He got help from an elderly man with a walker!!!  Talk about feeling pathetic on my part.


I came home and just cried my little heart out because I was so horribly sick/crashed and overwhelmed. I messaged one of my dog training friends (more of an acquaintance) and we called in a few other people from the dog group and they came and picked up me, and 6 garbage bags full of stuff. We went to the laundromat and laundered it all in hot water and a super hot dryer and they even folded it all. Now bags of his decontaminated stuff are piled in corners of my house.

My dad also had to move into my house while they fumigate his bedroom.  They told me for a few days, then for a week, now they are saying 2 or more weeks. So I can't live in my room until they finish the fumigation process.  I live in a 720 square foot house (there is semi finished basement where my housemate lives, we share the kitchen). The bed in the tiny spare room is too high up for my dad to get into, so that is where i am camped for now, it's not a bad room really, it's just not my bedroom. He is here most the day, but still going over to the dining room at his place to eat most his meals, because cooking him 3 meals a day is beyond me (and anyways, he's still paying rent).

It is all very frustrating and disheartening. His place seemed so clean and nice and safe.  I'm frustrated no-one else caught this issue earlier.  I'm also VERY frustrated that they are insinuating he must have brought them with him in his bed.  He's had that bed for years and there was no issue until he moved into this suite at this residence.  They have admitted it's not the first case of them this year at the residence, not to mention other residences and hotels in this city have been in the news regarding bedbugs the last year or two.

My day to day life is now a lot more challenging.  I have trouble coping with him constantly as he follows me around this small space and is very needy, and it's not like I go to work and can escape. I'm home almost all the time resting and doing my own thing.  I will survive, but life just really sucks right now.  It's bringing back all the traumatic incidents of last year, when I was thrown into being the main caregiver to two parents while ill myself. I thought that was mostly in the past, and that I was down to a do-able level of care.  Wishful thinking.