Big, enormous plus sides to spring:
Daffodils in bloom, trees slowly unfurling leaves, grass turning green once more.
Similarly, downsides:
I woke up Monday with a crushing headache. Worst I ever had, or at least since the last time I attended 2-for-1 Tequila Night at the Fallout Bar. (Or something like that. Anyway, it was back when I would have loved a 2-for-1 booze night of any kind.) It was the kind of headache that makes you think Hmm, one of the classic stroke symptoms is described as "worst headache I ever had." And: At my age it won't be nice and slay me right off; it will leave me blind and paralyzed and in a home for thirty years. Because I can catastrophize anything.
It woke me up about five a.m., and that woke up the dogs, and somehow I managed to get them outside and back. But the agony continued through three Advil Liqui-Gels, two arthritis-strength Tylenol, an ice pack, two shots per nostril of Afrin, and two pseudoephedrine. They eventually tamed it enough for me to get into a hot shower, as hot as I could stand it, where steam did the rest. I was tired and unfocused all day, though. (I think I had also slept funny -- not funny ha-ha -- because my neck hurt a lot, which of course I attributed to encephalitis until it went away.)
AccuWeather said the air quality was excellent, using some standard I can't imagine. Excellent for pollinating plants, I suppose. For humans with hay fever, not so hot.
That was only half the spring-related trauma, though. My wife had been brushing out large economy-size heap o' fuzz Tralfaz, and a day later found a big ol' tick in her hair. She doesn't go rubbing her head in the weeds, or at least hides it from me if she does, so I believe she was right in saying it must have come in on the dog and transferred to her.
Her reaction to finding a tick was what you might expect.
After smashing the beast and sending it down the toilet, I assured her that it was not a Lyme-bearing deer tick, because this tick was very large and those are very small. Somehow she did not find that as reassuring as one might have hoped.
Naturally, Fazzy had a new flea and tick collar on before the hour was out.
So, on we go with spring, and it's soggy as an underwater Oldsmobile out there this morning. I'm glad I feel okay today, and I'm glad it wasn't a stroke. You hate to get to the age where you write a phrase like "I'm glad it wasn't a stroke," but that's what happens if you live long enough, I suppose.
When I was a kid we'd play in a scruffy, brushy area that was a power line right of way. Great spot to play Army or hide and seek or Daniel Boone, you name it. A few days after playing there once I felt a small bump on my scalp. It itched a little, so I'd scratch it. This continued for a few days, and my scratching became increasingly robust. After about a week, I scratched vigorously, and a greyish blob about the size of a jelly bean fell on the table where I was seated. After staring at it a bit, I realized it had little brown cilia around it, which turned out to be legs. The tick had been on me for days and had become bloated with blood. I showed the old man, and he took it into the woodshed and whacked it with a hammer. The place looked like a blood spatter analysis from "Forensic Files". Talk about an "Eeeeewww" moment!
ReplyDeleteThe mutt is good at attracting ticks that I believe jump to the cat. Darn him!
ReplyDeleteChecking each other for ticks can be fun.
ReplyDeleteBlarg. I think if we hadn't shown up on earth, dogs would have had to make friends with chimps just to have something to pull the bugs off them.
ReplyDeleteYuch!
ReplyDeleteSince the demise of Bandit, who may be our last dog (a dog could come with us in a plane but I'm trying to avoid getting another dog at our ages) the odds of acquiring ticks has fortunately been reduced greatly.