Tick Tock

I took Maggie Mae for a walk down by the creek in Silvera Park Thursday evening and returned (unknowingly) with a sign of Spring. By 9:30 pm the tick I had picked up made him or herself known by a definite pain in my side. With John's help I was able to get all but the tick's head out of my body but a circular rash was getting bigger and bigger. Of course, all we were both thinking was Lyme Disease. I went to Kaiser Friday morning where a very nice doctor from Iran used sharp tweezers to get the head out. She talked to disease control and assured me that Lyme disease is rare in California and that the rash from it does not show up for a week or 2 and is not in the immediate area of the bite. Whew! My worst moments were in the treatment room after she got the tick out, told me that it looked like a Lyme rash and left me there for 30 minutes while she went to wash her hands. When she finally came back she was able to assure me that Lyme Disease is not common in California and that the localized immediate rash, though painful, was a good sign. Again. Whew! It's been almost 44 years since I have had a tick. That was on our honeymoon (camping in Oklahoma). We were poor college students. So romantic, picking ticks off each other by the light of a Coleman lantern. We quickly discovered that holding a match up to your skin did NOT make the tick back out.