Lyme Disease

This is apparently the summer of Lyme Disease.  I had two ticks on me earlier this season - one hard to yank off - and my physician looked at the red itchy spot it left in it's demise and gave me a script for doxycycline.  He doubted I had Lyme but thought ticks can transmit other stuff like staph and strep.  Then yesterday I was walking the dog and ambushed by my 92 year old long-winded neighbor who was pulling out his garbage to the curb. He is lonely, I know, but talks too much.  Some stuff is interesting and someone should record it for posterity (like what he did when WW2 broke out when he was a Freshman in college) but sometimes I just need to walk Zoey and get it done.  Especially in the heat we are experiencing this week.  Turns out my neighbor had two ticks on him recently, too.  One bite on his arm was red from a small tick he found and I urged him to get doxycycline from his doctor.  Then later, after school was out, I dropped off and picked up our granddaughter from her riding lesson. One horse who has been sick and looks sad was just diagnosed with a "raging" case of Lyme, according to her owner and the riding instructor.

Even later (it was a long day), after I took the girls to Menchie's and then to the pool, I had to laugh at the 6 year old obsessing about ticks and tick bites.  When we arrived at the pool she kept asking, is this a tick (a miniscule red dot).  I reassured her she'd see more inflammation.  Funny how kids pick things up from listening and over hearing.  Indeed, I'll probably get in trouble when, after picking up pizza after leaving the pool, I was treated to a litany of curse words I use when driving. She and her sister could recite them all. From me. Oh brother.

Postscript.  I was again ambushed by my neighbor one recent morning, energetically accosting me from his garage. "I've been looking for you" he said.  Twenty two days and I'm off the doxycycline.  thanks to you, I went and insisted on a prescription.