Fan-tas-TICK

Let me set the scene for you.  I driving down the street I live on, looking forward to coming home after being at work.  I notice as I pull up to the stop sign in front of our house that my mother-in-law was looking intently out the front window.  Weird!, I thought to myself.  They aren't normally sitting and staring out the front window.  Her and the kids are always doing something fun together.

Then as I walk up to the side door, it opens for me.  Weird!,  I thought to myself.  They don't usually open the door for me.  Probably because most of the time they don't know I'm home, but still...

Then I walk in to find my MIL and son standing at the door.  My son didn't have his shirt on.  Weird!, I thought to myself.  He's not normally topless when I get home.

Then I notice my MIL pointing at my son, with this interesting look on her face and trying to mouth something to me. Obviously confused, she asked, "Did you get my message?".   Well, that can't be good!, I thought to myself.

"No," I said.

"He got bit by a tick," she told me.

I have to admit that in that moment I thought I must have walked into someone else's house.  My son, bit by a tick?  Not possible., I thought to myself.  Not that he is immune from such things happening, I just never thought it would be something I would be confronted with in my lifetime.  I mean, I know we have ticks in this area, but I naively thought they were mainly in wooded areas and you only got bit if you spent time in those areas.  Well, I'm here to tell you that is not the case.  They were only outside for a little bit in the morning and all they did was walk around the yard and look at flowers.  Not the kind of activity I thought would lead to a tick bite.

My MIL said she woke Anthony up to ask him what to do.  He didn't know and apparently, figuring he wasn't going to be any help to anybody, promptly went back to bed.  I was pretty sure I knew what to do, but wanted to make sure I did everything exactly right, so I opted to call the nurse at my pediatricians office so she could walk me though the removal process.  (Which, by the way, is silly because I have a nifty little first aid print out hanging on my fridge that covers things like this and I never seem to use it.)

Let me just say, removing a tick is not as easy as it sounds.  Either that, or I'm just an idiot, but either way, I couldn't get the stinking thing out.  My biggest fear was to pull on it too hard and rip off the body without getting the head out.  So before I made the situation worse, I opted to schedule him a doctors appointment and let the professionals remove it.

Now, not a lot of things gross me out.  At least I like to think I have a higher tolerance for gross things.  But I don't do bugs.  I just don't handle them well.  And trying to yank this thing out was just almost more than I could handle to be honest.  And, the doctors appointment was a couple of hours away, so I was forced to look at this thing on his shoulder for awhile.

I wanted to keep my son occupied and still so he didn't mess with the tick, so I put on a Thomas movie for him to watch.  We were sitting there watching it, waiting for the minutes to go by so we could get this thing removed, when my son gets my attention.

"Mommy," he says, "there was a bug in my ear.  It was tickling me."

I look over at his outstretched finger to see this bug crawling quickly up his hand onto his arm.  What is that?, I wonder.  I get up to take a look at it.

"That no bug!", I said.  "That's a tick!"  At this point I'm freaking out a bit and a little annoyed.  Oh, and a little confused.  This can't be a different one...but how can this be the same one?  I quickly grab a Kleenex and pick up the tick.  Then I look at the spot on my son's shoulder where the tick was.  It was gone.  Sure enough, it was the same tick.

Why this one let go I'm not so sure.  I thought they stayed attached to you for awhile to get their fill.  Whatever the reason, I'm grateful.  That was certainly easier than taking him to the doctor. And I'm also grateful my son brought it to my attention before the tick decided to attach elsewhere or on someone else.  I'm grateful that the tick was intact.  Apparently, in terms of tick removal, this is a big deal.  So hooray for that! 

During this whole ordeal, my son was the picture of calmness. He didn't even bat an eye.  So lastly, I'm grateful that the tick bit my son and not my daughter.  That sounds like a weird thing to be grateful for, I know, but if you know much about my daughter, you know why.  Bugs freak her out.  Trust me, if there is an ant or a spider in the house, she will let you know it.  If an ant crawls by her high chair, she yells out, "Ant, ant!" and is too terrified to eat until you remove it from her presence.  If there is one on the floor, she yells out "Ant, ant" and, as upset as she is by it, it too scared to move.  So I can only imagine what it would have been like had it been her and not my son.  I think that trying to remove the tick from her would have been a lot more traumatic.  My MIL actually said my daughter was freaked out when she realized it was on my son and she kept looking down her shirt to make sure there was nothing on her!

Now we sit and wait to make sure that he didn't catch anything from the tick.  He was bitten by a Lone Star Tick.  Fortunately, this tick doesn't transmit Lyme Disease.  Unfortunately, it can transmit Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and a few other diseases, though rare.  Let's pray for the best!

Isn't that just enough to gross you out?

                                       
Sincerely,
The Mother Who Has Felt Like She's Had Bugs Crawling On Her All Day!