Imagine waking up to find this in your ear.

I have a thing about bugs.

They seriously creep me out. Not all of them, though. I mean, I can appreciate a lightning bug or a ladybug as much as the next person but when it comes to flies and bees (not to mention the immense and just plain gross waterbugs that can be found in the sweltering humidity that is New York City in the summertime) my insect appreciation can only go so far. We moved two years ago and our house is by the water, so while it’s beautiful to view the boats nearby, we have been inundated with a host of insects, some of which I cannot even identify. I call them summer bugs. So it was with much trepidation that I read the story today of a 12-year old boy who had a moth lodged inside his ear.

In Colorado, Wade Schlote woke up this past Sunday morning with a strange sensation in his ear. It quickly escalated into pain and he realized that a bug had crawled in during the night. Even worse, he knew the bug was still alive because every time it moved, it hurt more: “I kinda had a moment of panicking because there was a moth in my ear. I was screaming, and crying, because it hurt so much.”

After trying to shake it out, the bug would still not budge so his mother took him to the hospital where doctors didn’t immediately know how to dislodge the moth, which was still alive and kicking. “The doctors tried numbing my ear, thinking it would help with the pain and kill the moth. That didn’t work.”

Finally, the doctors took a pair of long tweezers and carefully extracted the moth. They kept it in a container and it lived for several days after that but eventually died.

Wade says he is “so happy it’s over. It was so painful. Every time it moved it hit my ear drum.” His calm mother said, “It’s kind of creepy. Moths are everywhere this year.”

She’s right and not just about moths either. Insects are proliferating this year in record numbers, especially here in the northeast with all the rain we have had. My yard alone is a breeding ground for mosquitoes. When I go out there to write which I normally do in the afternoons when the kids go in the pool, I emerge fully armed with citronella candles and deep woods Off. Yesterday I got at least five bite despite my willingness to encapsulate myself in a cloak of chemicals. They are the bites I have been scratching at the entire time I read and wrote about poor Wade, who unfortunately must be a heavy sleeper.

At least I’m a light sleeper and would (hopefully) wake up if I felt a bug going in my ear.

At least that’s what I’ll tell myself from now on…..

Have you ever had an insect infiltrate your ear or your child’s ear? What is your worst summer insect story?

Image: MorgueFile

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