Ground Zero - Tick Central
Ground Zero—Tick Central
Inhale calm.
Exhale well-being.
Inhale calm.
Exhale well-being.
My eyes are closed. I’m in a hospital bed, being comforted by my friend, Lisa. It’s been hours with no determination of what's wrong with me. The staff is attentive and helpful.
This morning, when I woke up, I thought my head was going to explode, and my joints felt like someone had beaten me with a baseball bat. I’d gone to bed the night before feeling fine. Now I was extremely nauseated, and soon I started losing fluids from both ends. I called my local doctor’s office, and the nurse felt it best I go to Urgi-Med, saying at least I’d need to be given fluids.
By the time Dane gets off work, takes care of the critters, and joins me here, they’re starting a second bag of fluids with more pain meds. I’ve been lying here all day, anxious about having no answers. We realize the doctor hasn’t mentioned a Lyme test.
The doctor shakes his head. “Lyme doesn’t present with a headache.” Dane’s shoulders rise to his ears, and I shudder. We know differently. Reluctantly, the doctor agrees to order the test and says the results will take two hours. It’s nearly 7 p.m., and I want to get home.
Despite the fact that I do everything right—faithfully wear socks treated with permethrin, pull my socks over my pant legs, use a 100 percent DEET spray on my shoes, treat my dogs and cats 12 months of the year, and spray my dogs with a magic mix that’s supposed to deter ticks from climbing on them—my Lyme test is positive.
According to WPR, this has already been the highest year for emergency room visits for tick-borne illness in Wisconsin since 2017. Coincidentally, that was the year I almost died from tick disease.
Welcome to ground zero—tick central!
They're here, and if you love to go outdoors—if you can’t resist heading out to witness the first of the bloodroots and spring beauties, then the bellwort and fiddleheads, and soon the columbine—you’re at risk of catching a tick-borne illness. If you have animals that go in and out of the house, even if you treat them, your chances of getting a tick-borne illness are even greater.
Although I’m diligent with tick prevention measures, I still find bloated ticks that fell off the dogs, notice deer ticks crawling on Finnegan, and pick ticks off the cats. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night because I feel something, turn on the light, grab my glasses, and see the dot of a tiny monster crawling up my arm.
Sure, we can walk on asphalt, stay in the middle of the path, dip our clothes in a bucket of permethrin, and pray like heck that any tick we pick up will be a male (they don’t carry the disease) or a wood tick (they don’t either, although they do carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever), but short of staying inside, there is always the risk of picking up a questing tick.
The morning after the diagnosis, I'm at home and have just swallowed my first dose of Doxycycline. Soon, Dane will be here, and since I’m so down, we’ll only take the dogs for a short walk on the Maple Dale trail in Viroqua.
I’ve misted the dogs with tick repellent, we’ve tucked our pants legs in, and I’ve sprayed my shoes. We enjoy a slow hike, stopping at the creek to watch the tiny trout hanging out. Later, we spy two wild turkey eggs and an assortment of purple and white violets. It’s springtime in Wisconsin, and we’re not going to miss it.
On the way home, I gasp, “What’s this on my neck?” Dane pulls over, looks, and removes a deer tick from me. “This makes me not want to go out there again,” he says. We’ve been cursing ourselves for not recognizing my symptoms earlier—achy, tired, and having a super foggy brain.
But almost at the same time, we both point and say, “Look, the leaves—the trees are filling out.” We always pay close attention to this special time when last year’s fallen leaves still cover the ground, trees are bare, and we can see all the secrets in the woods, until the moment we can no longer.
Today, the leaves are plentiful, in so many shades, and the grass is a green so vivid it almost looks artificial. The colors are so brilliant that, if I snapped a picture, you’d think it was photoshopped. We would never want to miss being out here, absorbing all these spring wonders and basking in the sunshine and warmer weather.
Inhale calm, exhale well-being.