A twist of lyme.

This has been a crappy week. Literally. On Tuesday morning, the school nurse called and told me my bubs was vomiting. I had sent him off skipping and happy that day and an hour later, all hell had broken loose. I ran to school as fast as I could and retrieved my sick boy. They sent us home with a giant garbage pail, which would later prove to be indispensable.
Usually with the pukes, you have an intense 24 hour period of hell, to be followed by the calm after the storm. This particular bug offered us no such reprieve, although it wasn't quite as intense. What it lacked in intensity, it more than made up for with endurance. This was an endless week, filled with bleach, lots of laundry, more body fluids than I care to discuss and lots of TV.
Bubs was not his usual perky self, but I must say that he was an excellent sick person. He made sure to vomit in the said school garbage pail or toilet every single time. I was very proud of his aim. When the big D hit us, he wasn't as precise. I can forgive him though.
I was very happy when Friday finally rolled around and we didn't wake up at five a.m. to vomit, as all the previous days before us. It seemed like this dark cloud of funk that descended upon us was going to lift.
Little did I know what excitement lay around the corner for us.
My husband took bubs to visit his uncle last night. My husband's uncle, although that isn't really relevant to the story. Bubs loves it there, they have woods and a lake. My husband got a huge net with which to catch fish. Bubs had a great time, he called to tell me he caught four fish with his net, and his bread. He was so proud. I was so happy he was having a great time, and out of the house.
When my husband came home with him later that night, bubs was out cold. So we put him to bed. H told me that bubs got a splinter in his thumb but he didn't get a chance to get it out. I said that we should give him a tub in the morning and maybe the soaking in the water would dislodge it without us having to go through the hell of attempting to tweeze it out. My son is kind of crazy with any kind of 'removing' of things from his body. Thank God his toenails don't grow very much. I think it warrants it's own post, and I remember writing about my son wanting the 'potatoes' I cleaned out of his ears back .
Anyhoo, this morning, my H was giving bubs the bath. I hear him say 'Oh NO'. That is never a good sign. Never.
I ask of course, 'what is the matter' and then I hear screaming from my son. My H informs me that he has found a tick on my son's head. From now on, in my world, the word 'tick' will illicit a response that requires an immediate ingestion of xanax.
At that point, you have three hysterical people. All screaming at once. My H instructs me to call up his uncle and find out about tick removal. It must be said, that at 42, I am not an outdoor type of person. I have never come in contact with a tick, I have never had the opportunity to come in contact with a tick. In my husband's family, they are all well versed in all aspects of 'tickology'. H's sister also called at the same time. She said to smother it with Vaseline. H's uncle said not to do that, it would take too long for it to die. It would have to be removed with a tweezers.
I sterilized the tweezer and then stabilized my poor screaming son's head. This took longer than you could imagine. More screaming, from all of us. Naked wet son is out of the tub now. My H managed to extract the evil tick from my son's scalp. It looked like we got the whole thing. Apparently one must grab the head, or the 'snout' as my H called it. Ewwwwwww.
We then had to check my poor child for more. He was terrified at this point, and it was probably due to the behavior that my H and I exhibited, more than anything. We washed his hair again and combed it. The stupid tick was still alive. My H grabbed an empty diet coke bottle from the recycling bin and put it in there.

Once the semblance of order was restored I took bubs and the coke bottle with the little terrorist (who was now dead and floating in a solution of rubbing alcohol)to the pediatrician. We told him the doctor needed to see the tick and check him out. My son announced to the nurse when she called his name 'I am not here to see the doctor, the tick is going to see the doctor'. Of course, only I knew what the hell he was talking about.

The tick is being sent out to a lab. The doctor is pretty sure it's just a dog tick and we should all survive. Now I can go back to just worrying about swine flu.