Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Spring fever.

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. 

5 comments:

  1. 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!

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  2. The mutt is good at attracting ticks that I believe jump to the cat. Darn him!

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  3. Checking each other for ticks can be fun.

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  4. Blarg. 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.

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  5. Yuch!

    Since 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.

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