gerisullivan | Belated post, and 4-part harmony

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.