"The Good News....? It Wasn't Bed Bugs"

First, a little background:

Several years ago I stayed in one of my favorite hotels while entertaining customers near my company’s headquarters.  A couple of days after I returned home, I noticed a “rash.”  I showed it to one of my buddies, who is a doctor, and he immediately identified it as bedbug bites.  He asked if I had stayed in a hotel recently, which I had, and told me I probably got the bites there.

Bedbugs are the bane of the hotel business and an exceptionally difficult problem to control.  It has become so prevalent that there is a website, www.bedbugregistry.com, where you can access information on hotel bedbug infestations before you plan a trip.  As part of my routine travel planning, I take a look at that site to make sure I don’t get bitten again (bedbugs can be very vindictive).

Now to the story:

Last fall, I had a meeting on the west coast.  I carefully selected a newer hotel, which is always my preference since you get better beds, gyms, TV’s, wireless etc.  I checked the bedbug registry and did not find the hotel listed, so I made my reservation and headed for the coast.  I arrived on Saturday, checked in and set off to dinner.  Dinner was at a friend’s house where we sat on his patio while he barbecued.  Sunday morning, I noticed a couple of bite marks on my feet which I attributed to having walked around in my friends back yard while he was cooking.  Since it was the weekend, I did a little sightseeing and then went back and camped out at the hotel to work and watch TV.

On Monday, I headed out early to a meeting, which required me to be on my feet most of the day.  Mid morning my feet and legs started to itch and I became substantially more uncomfortable.  When I arrived back at the hotel that evening, my feet and legs looked like they had chicken pox.  Now, one of my completely rational on-going phobias is getting really sick or injured when I’m 2,000 miles from home.  Here I was, 2,000+ miles from home with what appeared to be leprosy.  Since I’m a “shade-tree” dermatologist, I immediately attributed my condition to bed bugs.  After all, I’ve got experience and I was literally itching to make a diagnosis.  Clad in shorts and sandals, I packed my bag and headed for the door.  NO WAY was I staying another day in this hotel, no telling what I’d look like Tuesday morning.  I spoke to the desk clerk, who could clearly see my legs and feet, explained my early departure, checked out, and headed up the road to a different hotel. 

Tuesday, as I was headed to my last meeting, my phone rang.  It’s difficult enough to take a call while you’re driving, but try steering, talking and scratching both legs simultaneously.  The hotel manager was calling to apologize.  The first words out of his mouth were;  “I have good news, it wasn’t bed bugs….”  Now at his end of the phone it was good news.  However, at my end of the phone the jury was still out.  His hotel didn’t have bed bugs, but my legs and feet looked and felt like they’d hosted a mosquito convention and I was really having a hard time celebrating his good fortune. 

The rest of his sentence….?  “ I have good news, it wasn’t bed bugs, and it was fleas.” 

I have to applaud this young man.  He had sentenced me to a couple of hours of Internet research to see if there were any terminal diseases I could get from fleas, while keeping his hotel off the bed-bug list.  To some degree, my condition was my own fault.  One of the “features” of this particular hotel was “pet friendly” and the hotel has little control over pets arriving with their own array of pets. 

It took a couple of weeks of intense Ben & Jerry’s therapy for the bites to clear up, but only two seconds for me to make a decision to opt out of “pet friendly” hotels on future travel.