This is a funny story that I just have to tell everyone. New mom's, mom's of older children and everyone else will get a huge laugh when you read how this experience went down.
Roman was 3 weeks old and we were still adjusting to being new parents. After dinner I had placed Roman in this vibrating chair and he was taking his after dinner cat nap. I am not sure what I was doing at the time, but I remember looking over and seeing a red spot on the dog's inner thigh leg area. I thought to myself that is weird. I asked my husband to go over and look at what he thought it was. Maybe it is just a bug bite and I am over reacting. Dan lays the dog down on his side and takes a look and he tell me that he thinks that it is Ringworm. WHAT?!?!? How did the dog get ringworm!
This is where I begin to be a crazy new mommy.
In my head I start to think where the dog has been all day and what he could have possibly touched or licked. I begin to freak out and put him in his room so I can keep him contained. I call the pediatrician's office to try and reach the doctor on call. When I get the answering service it informs me that I will be talking with a nurse and not the doctor and that I might be charged $25 for the call if my insurance does not cover it. I think no nurse and I am going to get charged for this call. No way and I hang up the phone. At the same time Dan is on the phone with his mom telling her what we think is going on and she hangs up to call the vet. She gets in touch with the vet and he tells her to inform us to keep the dog away from the baby and that we need to bring him in on Monday for a check up. She had some anti-fungal medicine from one of the other dogs and let us know that we could use it on Nico. Dan goes up stairs to get dressed and head on over to his parents house. Thank goodness we are only 15 minutes away.
After Dan leaves I call my mother-in-law and for some advice on what to do. At this point I am still in crazy mom mode. She says that I can wipe down all the areas that I think that Nico came in contact with for peace of mind. Well, of course I took it to the extreme.
Roman continues to sleep in his chair so I let the dog out of his crate and I disinfect the inside with bleach. I then proceed to put him back in his room and I deem him banished from the rest of the house while I begin to sterilize. I get a bucket and fill it with diluted bleach and begin to wipe down everything in sight. I am wiping down the pack n' play, the swing, furniture and gathering up all of the swaddling blankets, clothes every stitch of fabric that could have possibly touched the dog and touched Roman.
Roman is now starting to wake up so I take him upstairs with me and continue may manic cleaning. I am now wiping down the bassinet and trying to figure out how I take it apart so I can wash all the fabric pieces and the tiny sheet. I gather up the rest of the blankets, burp cloths, clothes, swaddling blankets and shove them all into the washer. At this point I am feeling good about the house, but think what about Roman? He needs a bath. I have to wash him off just in case.
Needless to say Roman's first bath time experience was not as pleasant as I would have liked it to be. His first, bath was a frantic mess. I put him in the bath tub and begin to bathe him. He is screaming and crying and letting me know that he is not happy about what I am doing and that I need to stop. I finishing bathing him and get him ready for bed. At this point Roman is tired and stressed out from my manic bathing and cleaning so I nurse him and put him to bed.
It is now 11:45pm and Dan is getting home with medicine and he is ready to disinfect and clean the "ringworm". He medicates and cleans the affected area. At 12:30 in the morning we crawl into bed and hope to get a little sleep before Roman wakes up for his next feeding.
Monday afternoon Dan takes Nico to the vet to get his spot checked and to hopefully get some medication. After a rapid test it comes back inconclusive and a sample is sent away to the lab to find out what he really has so the vet gives us some anti-fungal medicine to use while we wait. Two days later and $200 vet bill it comes back that it was most likely a bug bite and I of course completely over reacted to the situation. But in all honesty what new mom would not have acted the way! I mean come on, we thought the dog had ringworm!
All in all, lesson learned and if we didn't react the dog probably would have had contracted SARS and we all would have been infected with a deadly disease.
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