Last year, my husband and I purchased our first house.
Lucky for us new homeowners, the house needed minimal work.
Any fixer-upping was mostly stuff we wanted to do, rather than repairs that were absolute necessities.
Courtesy of Katie Holley
Anyone who has lived in a humid location is probably well-acquainted with these flying, horrifying monsters.
Well, roaches kept making appearances in our home, so I finally called a local exterminator.
My husband and I felt good about this.
Courtesy of Katie Holley
Unfortunately, our sense of relief that we wouldn’t find any more roaches was a little premature.
I shot up out of bed, disoriented, and stumbled to the bathroom.
I could feel that my ear was not right.
Courtesy of Katie Holley
Moments later, I came to the realization that they were legs.
Legs that could only belong to an adventurous palmetto bug exploring my ear canal.
I started to hyperventilate, and my husband searched furiously for his glasses and joined me in the bathroom.
In that moment, my husband was my only hope.
Women can get shit done, let me tell you.
It was an awful feeling, one that was not necessarily painful, but psychologically torturous.
He dropped me at the entrance and went to park the car.
I approached the front desk to tell them my issue.
I told him I was not in pain, although I felt like I was going to vomit.
I explained to him that a roach crawled into my ear while I was asleep and it was stuck.
and then confirmed to me and my husband that there was a roach in my ear.
(Spoiler: It didnt.)
She agreed to remove the cuff.
He also confirmed that a roach was indeed in my ear (OMFG I AM AWARE, PEOPLE).
I was still whimpering, but also grateful/annoyed as my husband attempted to calm me down.
It took about two minutes for the roach to die (RIP, asshole).
Then, using big, curved tweezers, the doctor removed a few chunks of roach.
Like, no thanks.
Why would I want to see that?
Once three pieces of roach were removed, the doctor showed them to us on a little napkin.
So it wasnt super hugebut it was still a roach.
Now, it was about 3:45 A.M., and my husband and I were both wide awake.
We decided to take a trip to Walmart to buy earplugs.
As you could probably guess, I didnt sleep much the rest of the night.
I had to see my family physician to renew my daily meds anyway.
So when I went in about a week later for my appointment, I told her about my ordeal.
She was horrified for me.
Once my ear had been flushed about four times, the PA used the otoscope to check inside.
The PA said she saw what she believed to be a spiky insect leg.
She ended up pulling out six more pieces of the roachs carcassnine days after the incident took place.
Remember: I was told in the ER that the entire roach had been removed.
I saw the evidence myself!
But apparently what the ER removed wasnotthe entire roach.
I went home and tried to relax for a few hours before heading to the ENT.
I kept thinking about the pieces that were extracted at the ER.
Did they find the head?
But I could only hope that the ENT would only need to remove another teensy leg or two.
He didnt say much, but he did confirm there was still something in there.
The ENT assured me that he got all of the remaining pieces of the roach.
We had the pest control company come and respray our house.
They are my heroes for helping me through that very traumatic moment in my life.
Katie Holley is the sister-in-law of an editor at SELF.
