My Tick Story

On Saturday afternoon/early evening, I went to hang out with my friend Angela, her family, and her brother that she wanted me to meet. We went to the rail trail and went for a walk along the river- a bit off the beaten path. It was a little drizzly, but we didn’t get too wet. When we got back to the house, Angela found a tick on her shirt. I had never seen a tick before and was intrigued. I checked my jacket and jeans to make sure that I didn’t have anything on me… those things are creepy. We didn’t do any serious exertion and since I had biked 15 miles before I met up with them I decided to wait to shower until the following morning. In the shower I saw what I thought was a mole but not in a place that I am used to seeing one. So, I thought it was dirt… I got my washcloth and scrubbed my hip only to realize that it wasn’t dirt or a mole. I had a tick burrowing into my skin. I freaked. I had no idea what to do, I was totally grossed out and I’ll admit, at this point, I was a little scared. I called everyone I knew. But since it was a Sunday morning, everyone was getting ready for church and not answering their cell phones. Finally, I got a hold of someone. They said to smother it with Vaseline and that would “suffocate” it and it would start to back out. It creeped me out too much to pull it out myself so I smothered the thing, put a band aid over it and went to church with some tweezers so someone could pull it out for me. (By the way- it’s better for someone else to pull these out so that you don’t get any broken off body parts of the tick left under your skin.) By the time I got to church, the Vaseline had kicked in and the tick had started backing out and Angela was able to pull the thing out. You’re supposed to save the tick when you pull it out of your skin so you can send it for testing for Lyme disease if need be. But, I know a guy at work who studies Borrelia burgdorferi (the bacterium that is carried by ticks that causes Lyme’s disease) so I had him take a look at the tick. Sure enough, it’s the kind of tick that carries this bacterium- a deer tick. So I’ll have to watch the wound site to make sure that a rash doesn’t develop (a symptom of infection). I have finally stopped checking the site of any itch that may come along during the day for fear of ticks… but seriously, this was one of the grossest things I’ve experienced. (As for the brother, he was nice, but not for me).