Reflections - Tick, Tick, Tick
Dame's Rocket
Early this spring, a tick swooped off some brush into my turtleneck to lodge on my right shoulder. The sneaky arachnid didn’t bite until I slept. I woke with an aching, itching lump. Since then, I’ve walked along our dusty road. That kept me safe for weeks. I didn’t use the evil spray with permethrin that’s only safe on clothes. It’s easier to walk in dust than strip on the porch to prevent taking the spray inside to our three tabby cats.
So, preparing for bed in the loft Saturday, May 13 while our friends Eric and Kay visited, the last thing I expected was a tick waving its legs, wiggling its abdomen, and digging its mouth into my upper left thigh. The tick must have crawled up my pants leg when Kay and I walked around Wells Wood that afternoon.
Dressed for the dirt road—jeans that didn’t quite reach the tops of my cross-trainers—I hadn’t meant to wander into the field let alone the woods. I’d grabbed a pad of paper and a pen for listing the berm flowers. After jotting buttercups and forget-me-nots that bloomed beside the parking pad out front, I strayed. Sharp-lobed hepatica drew me into the field. We noted the violets, speedwell, and purple dead nettle on the way to the woods in search of white trillium that usually unfurl their petals around Mother’s Day. Telling Kay to wait on the path in case I didn't find any, I scuffed through last year’s leaves—in vain. I presume that’s how the tick found me.
In the loft, I pinched the eighth-of-an-inch chomper and pulled.
It dug deeper.
“Ouch.” My skin stretched like a rubber band. “Drat!”
“Do you need help?” Spence called from the great room where he read computer headlines and Eric read a novel.
“Maybe.” I yanked the tick again. It wouldn’t let go. “Dang that hurts.”
Footsteps thudded up the stairs. Spence rushed to my side. With a relieved smile, he said, “Ticks think you’re sweet.”
“Not funny. I can’t pull it out.” I demonstrated.
“You’ve gotten ticks out before.” He leaned in for a closer look. “What did you put on them?’
“Vaseline. It’s in the bathroom. Or I took a shower and flooded them off.” We listened to the spray of water from Kay showering downstairs. I didn’t want to pull my jeans over the tick for walking past Eric anyway.
“Don’t you have anything up here?”
“Only Vicks VapoRub.”
Spence fetched it off the bedside table.
I slathered the menthol-odor rub on the tick. Instead of encouraging the arachnid to withdraw, the goop killed the tick. Great.
Changing into my nightgown, I followed Spence downstairs and sat with a dead tick dangling from my thigh until Kay finished her shower.
With tweezers and a sewing needle, I sat on the toilet seat and dislodged the carcass piece by piece.
Spence supplied the wound wash.
One tick leg sunk too deep to dig out.
“Leave it for Deb.” Spence patted my shoulder which heaved with panting from the stinging wash and the needle. “Call Primary Care Monday.”
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| Daisy Fleabane |
Monday morning the receptionist at the health center took information about the tick’s leg in my thigh plus the bite Spence spotted on my other thigh and the bite I found by his left rib cage.
Spence answered the phone when a nurse called back with an appointment for us to see Deb Tuesday. He tapped computer keys, changing his Tuesday Cleveland trip to Wednesday. “Why didn’t Deb just order antibiotics?”
The nurse’s nurse, as Spence named the competent woman assisting our CRPN, called us from the waiting area. “Are you comfortable sharing a room?”
“Of course.” Having worn my lightest slacks and blouse, I slipped out of my shoes and dumped my jacket on the floor beside the scale.
“It’s a date.” Spence grinned, stepping on next in his heavy tick boots.
She ushered us to the nearest exam room and opened her laptop.
Taking one of the chairs, I asked, “Should I put my shoes on, or will I need to take my slacks off for Deb to see the bites?”
The nurse didn’t answer. She took vitals and went through our lists of medications before looking Spence in the eye. “Did you take the doxycycline prescription I sent to Giant Eagle pharmacy for Deb yesterday?”
“No.”
I poked him with my bony elbow. “What?”
“It was fuzzy. Deb wanted to see us first.”
The nurse’s whole body stiffened, broom-stick straight. “Antibiotics work best if taken within twenty-four hours of the tick bite.”
Spence spread his arms tractor-bucket wide. “You weren’t open over the weekend.”
The nurse cleared her throat. “I’ll let Deb know.” She typed some notes into the computer and turned to me.
“Are you comfortable pulling your pants down for Deb, or do you want to take them off?” She put her hand on a cupboard door. “I can give you a paper sheet or a gown for cover.”
“I prefer the sheet, please.”
She handed me the sheet, drew the curtain for privacy, and left to notify Deb.
Deb peered at all three of our tick bites and asked in her gravelly voice, “Do they hurt?”
Spence shook his head.
“Mine did at first. Now they itch like crazy.” I clenched my fingers so I wouldn’t scratch.
She sat on a stool and stretched her legs wide in front of her. “Ticks irritate the skin. None of your bites are infected. I still want you to get the doxycycline prescriptions I sent to Giant Eagle. Take them today.” She looked at both of us, wrote some notes on her chart, then faced me. “The tick’s leg will work itself out. The bites should stop itching after two weeks.”
I must have looked horrified because Deb gave me a sympathetic smile. “Tick bites can be very annoying. Yours are okay. But keep watching them. If they drain pus or develop a red and white bullseye, call me immediately.”
While I imagined another week and a half of not-scratching torture, Spence and Deb chatted about the abundance of ticks this year and Spence contracting lime disease in the early eighties on a New York trip.
Deb reached forward and touched the blouse cuff I hadn’t buttoned. “Wear long sleeves when you go outside. But close them tight around your wrists. And be sure to use tick spray.”
Following Deb’s first directive, Spence drove me to Giant Eagle. At the store we split up. He wheeled a cart off for a medium shop. I walked through the pharmacy’s queue barriers and waited for the only other customer, who stood at the counter with a credit card in her hand. The end of our tick drama would be quick and quiet.
SMASH!
Heads of five pharmacy workers, the customer holding her card, and me swung toward the end of the second aisle over. A mom reached across her grocery cart, pulled a four-year-old boy up by the back of his t-shirt, and calmly said something too soft to hear.
Glass cracked and tinkled under his feet. His shoulders slumped, mouth drooped, and face registered dread. He stood as still as the cans stacked behind him.
His little sister edged around the cart to see what had happened.
The mom let go of the boy and grabbed the girl. A toddler in the cart seat swung his legs.
White Coat One, who’d been helping the customer, yelled, “Call the manager,” and hustled to the scene of distress.
White Coat Two, leaving his computer, followed with a broom, dustpan, and waste basket.
Gently pushing the cart, White Coat One guided the mom and children away—revealing two extra large wine glasses on the bottom shelf and shards of glass on the floor. As if he’d swept glass shards daily, White Coat Two wielded the broom while his co-worker comforted the little boy. “It was an accident. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re a good boy.”
Meanwhile, back at the pharmacy, the line behind me grew and the middle-aged customer with the card in her hand yelled to the remaining white coats, “You told me my prescription was ready!” She stood on tiptoes—pushing her ample fanny out to get a better view of their workings. “You’re mixing it now.” She banged her fist on the counter. “Such incompetence.”
Young White Coat Three, who had been mixing something with a mortar and pestle, hurried to the window. “There was a mistake in the order. I’m correcting it. It will only take a minute.”
“I’m never coming here again! You’re all idiots.” The customer stuffed the credit card in her wallet and swung around.
“We want the order to be correct for . . .”
But the woman was stomping past the mom and kids on the way out of the store.
In a synchronized ballet, White Coat Three returned to her desk as White Coat One
fetched a cup of lollipops. The children giggled, studied colors on wrappers, and made choices. Next the manager arrived, the mom glided off with the children, and White Coat Two retreated with his janitorial apparatus. White Coat One explained the event to the manager before, finally, dispensing our doxycycline.
The tick drama had come to an end.
And to keep it at an end, if I’m heading off the dusty road outside to work in the garden or get photos in the woods, I soak my clothes—hat, shirt, pants, and boots—generously with permethrin spray. Spence gives a quick spritz to his boots and the bottom of his jeans. One tick drama is plenty of adventure for me.
Wild Geranium
