Ticked Off!

This morning, I woke up just a bit early. Did some eyebrow maintenance, and then got naked and turned on the shower. I put my hands on my hips while waiting for the water to get hot and then I felt… something. Still a little groggy (I am NOT a morning person), I thought it felt like something was just stuck to me (like a scab or a piece of something) at the back of my right hip.

So, I pulled. And it hurt, but I pulled the item right off. Looking at my fingers to see what it was, I at first thought it was a spider. I yelped and threw it into the shower. Looking at it again (still moving, of course), I realized it was a tick.

I started freaking out. I called for Sean to come take a look and make sure I got it, and make sure the place where the tick bit into me was OK and to look at the insect and see if he also thought it was a tick. And also, I needed him to check every inch of the rest of me and make sure it was the only one. The first thing he said was, “Do I need to get a match?” Apparently, he’s had more tick-removal experience than I have!

Of course, once I was assured my skin was OK, I ran to get the camera to take a picture of it for later identification and story telling purposes. It was a fast little bugger and I didn’t get a great shot of it before I decided to smash it. Sean tried to smash it with his fingers, but eventually I took a pen and just crushed the life right out of it. I was like, “My blood!!”

Sean said, “You’re lucky it didn’t really burrow in and you could just pull it off!”

I have this terrible fear of ticks. They are one of the most dreaded bugs to me, and their parasitic nature and blood-sucking-ness totally give me the heebie-jeebies! Thankfully, I have never had one on my flesh until today! But it was one of my biggest nightmares come to life!

Whenever I am outside where there might be a possibility ticks would get on me, I’m constantly saying “tick check!” And I don’t even wear “Off” bug repellant because there isn’t enough DEET in it (not even in the Deep Woods version, which has 25% DEET!). What I use is Sawyer Maxi Deet, which contains 95% DEET! Yeah!

I almost always wear this stuff, but did not when out for a nature walk this week. But, even though it was a prime “tick area,” I don’t think that’s where I got this tick. I think I would have noticed it before today since that was Wednesday, and also it would have been way more engorged with blood and embedded then it was. I think it is more likely that I got this tick from playing with a stray cat at my in-laws house yesterday. In fact, I did pick up and pet the cat, holding it on the very side of my body where I found the tick this morning.

I got in the shower to detox from the tick experience. I felt so… dirty! And anyone who knows me knows that I am militant about personal hygiene, so the whole tick thing just made me want to scrub my skin right off! While I was in the shower, Sean googled ticks to see if we could figure out what kind it was. It looks to me like it was probably a dog tick (I’m guessing American dog tick), which thankfully do not carry Lyme disease, but also do not usually bite people. Since it was not very embedded in my skin and because it was about the size of a pencil eraser, this is the most likely suspect. Deer ticks, which can carry Lyme disease, are usually very tiny.
Still, I’m supposed to keep the look out for fever and rash, as dog ticks can carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and other diseases.

-- Note: the blurry pictures are of the tick that was on me, the clear photo is a picture from the web of an American dog tick --