Belated post, and 4-part harmony

[gerisullivan]

Two things:

1) I have acquired a tick. My first-time, overly exhausted attempts to remove it resulted in a botched job. I have a 7pm appointment at Urgent Care in Worcester tonight to have the rest of the beast removed. I believe "excised" is the pertinent term. I anticipate there is also a conversation about antibiotics in my immediate future.

2) It's funny the things one thinks are common knowledge among one's friends that turn out not to be. Two cases in point have been brought to my attention within the last 48 hours or so. Yes, I am poly and yes, I was baptized and spent my formative years with the name "Mary Beth Fitzgerald." I'll gladly give the 4-part harmony on the name change in an upcoming post, though probably not for another day or two. Please feel free to noodge me if I let that slide. Life's intense in unwelcome ways these days as well as a few welcome ones.

The 4-part harmony. I wrote about the tick bite last night, only to have it be replaced with a draft of a previous entry when LJ lost track of itself and asked if I wanted to restore to a previously saved version. Today, LJ lost track of itself again, and restored to the copy that vanished last night. Okay.

Original subject:
"Please stay on the line..."

...blankety-blank me and the horse I rode in on.

So, after being stupid on the sleep front, i went upstairs and got ready for bed.

And found a tick.

Only it didn't just brush off, 'cause I'd probably had it since climbing through the brush up the hill Friday afternoon to talk with my neighbor.

Anyway, having never removed a tick before and being stupidly tired, I did it wrong and part of the tick is still inside me. Which means I have to get it excised out, and the Nurse Connect line says that's going to mean an emergency room visit because we oughtn't wait until Monday.

############

Good news. The direct care nurse (rather than Nurse Connect) called back as I was typing the paragraphs above.

1) I *don't* have to go to an Emergency Room before I sleep. There was no talk of doing that at all. (The Nurse Connect person didn't know if there was an Urgent Care Clinic and only stressed the importance of calling into the doctor's on-call service immediately (tonight).

This is an enormous win. I am not currently safe to drive.

2) There's an Adult Urgent Care Clinic in Worcester. It's open tomorrow from 9 to 9. I can call in the morning and go over there to have the rest of the tick removed and see what treatment we decide on from there.

I am so glad to learn there's an Urgent Care Clinic, even if it is 35 miles away.

The nurse also told me how to clean and treat the area tonight.

This may totally bollux tomorrow's plans, but that's okay.

It may turn out to be a financially good thing that I picked up prescription drug coverage effective April 1st. I don't know for sure that I'll be doing a course of antibiotics, but given how long the tick has most likely been attached, I won't be at all surprised if we go that route. I expect I'll find out tomorrow.

Then there's the question of just where my medical records are. On April 7th (when I received confirmation that the plan change had gone through effective 4/1), I arranged for my records to be sent to my new doctor on the regular service. Which means they were going to do it within 30 days.

Fun, fun. Joy, joy. Royal pain in the patootie.

Hey, it's not a stroke or heart attack. I'm good with that. And now I'm going to sleep, so the "oh, great, just what I need, more stress" doesn't turn into one.

Winding down....

Arrrgh.

Comments

[carbonel]

For future reference:

My favorite tick removal technique (and as a two-time camp nurse, I have a reasonable amount of experience) for ticks that can't just be brushed off is a cotton ball drenched in mineral oil and placed over the tick. Eventually the tick won't be able to breathe and will let go to come up for air.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

This is what I did when I played nurse for a camping trip with teens one year. But one of them complained about noise in one ear and when I looked with the otoscope and found a tick, we hiked out and drove an hour to a hospital for them to take care of that.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Vaseline works too. I think that's how we used to get ticks off of our dogs.

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Shriek! This sounds about as unpleasant an experience as it's possible to undergo. All sympathy to you.

Also something which needs saying, and while this may not be the most appropriate forum it's the quickest: my sincere apology for my ill considered comments on the Corflu chat channel early yesterday. While I meant no disrespect to you or the person under discussion, I phrased myself clumsily and inappropriately, and should have damn well known better. I abase myself.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

I am happy to report I am now tickless.

Thank you for your apology. Accepted, and glad to move on from here.

I am sorry I landed so hard and fast on your comments. I wish I had responded in a less confrontative way since that only got in the way of good communication and made you profoundly uncomfortable in the process.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Ah, for the Good Old Days when a few tick-bites were just a minor part of Life! (And the best treatment was a matter of friendly argument -- IIRC, vaseline usually worked well, but if the head broke off & continued burrowing we'd just dig it out with a sharp-pointed pocket-knife blade (every decent knife had one good for this) and pour on a glug of alcohol. Mind you, this manifestation of the Do It Yourself Ethos fails in this era of Lyme Disease.)

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Well, that sucks. Let us know if you need anything to make this better. (When you said "I have acquired a tick," I envisioned you winking uncontrollably, by the way.)

Uhm, I had that same...

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Reaction. Had to read it twice...

Re: Uhm, I had that same...

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

Me three....

Re: Uhm, I had that same...

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

Me four.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Ticks! One worries about that, especially in the part of the world where Lyme is. Good luck with getting it out.

Worcester is only 35 miles away? It seems farther.

I knew that you were one of a few people I know (mostly women) who've entirely changed their first names, but I don't think I'd heard the whys & wherefores of your history.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I knew you were poly but I didn't know your original name was Mary Beth and I didn't know you had a tick, and I hope you don't any more!

[parsleigh.livejournal.com]

My own tick experience postponed our honeymoon. We had a car breakdown on the way to our cabin and had to hike several miles along a wooded highway before being picked up and going back to our apartment. When I got home we discovered several ticks on my head and leg. We used tweezers to remove after trying a hot match. Not fun but I usually check for ticks when I'm in the woods now.

Sounds...

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Like not much fun. I hope it all comes out in the end.

[maruad.livejournal.com]

I hope you can get it dealt with quickly, cheaply with as little problem as possible.

I do not know what you mean by poly. Is this a religious thing, marital status or your major at university (i understand poly-sci)?

[maruad.livejournal.com]

NM. mjlayman straightened me out (thank you btw). I really shouldn't be let out to play on the internet some days.

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

The usual treatment for tick bite is a pair of antibiotics. I believe the current set is Biaxin and a sulfa drug or quinolone (like Cipro) (all available generically). If your drug plan has wildly different copays for brand versus generic, don't be shy about asking for a drug that's available generically. They can communicate with a pharmacy and ask.

Next time, for an imbedded tick, starve it for 5-10 minutes of air (oil, vaseline, or under water), douse it with alcohol, then pull gently or scrape with a credit card. Treat with an antibiotic ointment.

Lyme disease mostly comes from deer ticks, which are tiny; the larger variety (dog ticks) can carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, but it's rare here. Therefore, most ticks that you can see aren't a concern. Lyme disease actually isn't transmitted from the tick until it's been on you about 24 hours. However, the ticks are so small (and drop off after a couple of days) that you may never notice them; in that case, hope for the distinctive 'bullseye' rash (which only occurs about 2/3rds of the time).

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

I am glad you are aware that antibiotics may be needed. Lyme Disease is nothing to fool around with.

My last few attachments were back when I was a kid and Lyme Disease hadn't even been described. For years I would carefully run my fingers through my hair and over my ears after I was in the woods, and then try to find a mirror where I could check my back.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I hope you're fine by now, without too many expenses!

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Crap, it's early for ticks. Sorry an over-acheiver got you!

K.