Creepy Crawly (long icky and mostly pointless)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Scene setting: Summer afternoon (yesterday) Midwestern suburban home…IE. Tick central.

Cast
Furlikid: Active 10yo girl with waist length brown hair.
Furli: (That would be me)
FurliMV: (Furli’s mom voice)
FurliIV: (Furli’s inner Voice)

As we open our scene, a woman is working on the computer, and a child is watching * Castle in the Sky* on DVD for about the 4 millionth time.

Furlikid: Mom???
Furli: Yes??
Furlikid: I got this strange bump on my head.
FurliIV: Oh oh
FurliMV: Ok let me take a look.
FurliIV: i dunwanna idunwanna ew ew
Furli: Ok where is this bump
Furlikid: ok its right here (parts hair)
FurliIV: i dunwanna idunwanna ew ew
**FurliMV: I see there is something here **
FurliIV: Oh MY Geebis it is a tick. Eww ewwwwww ewwww. Get it off. Get it off my baby. Eww Eww ewww ewww. I don’t want to touch it. Ok maybe it isnt a tick. Maybe it’s only a tumor. Yeah its skin colored ok maybe the shape is tick like thats coincidence right?? ew ew ew. Why am i wishing for a tumor over a tick. EWWWW.
FurliMV: Well looks like we should see if we can get this off.
Furlikid:What is it.
**FurliMV: well it might be a tick **
Furlikid: (begins to cry) eww mommy make it go away.
**FurliMV: Ok let me just get some stuff **

furli runs into the bathroom and grabs some toilet paper and some rubbing alcohol Im not touching that EWW EWWW on the way back to Furlikid she finds a photograph that should work. Wait a minute isn’t there supposed to be some way to make it back out like baby oil or something…Shutup get it off my BABY. I’m not touching it. EW EW get it off. and goes back to Furlikid. Slides the photo under the tumor thingy and grabs the thing with the toilet paper and pulls. Off it comes. But it flips over in the toilet paper and the little legs can be seen waving still the same size as when the thing was its original size. EWWWWwwwwww Ick Ick Ick Furli runs to the bathroom throws it in the toilet flushes then throws up. hey not gonna throw up on top of it it needs to be gone first EWWWWWWW
Furlikid: Mommy???
FurliMV: Ok hun I will be right theregag eww

Furli goes to child with the rubbing alcohol and cleans off wound, which is by now bleeding a fair amount.

Furlikid: (crying pretty hard now) I"m bleeding???
FurliMV: It’s ok hun it cleans it out, you are fine
FurliIV: I can deal with blood this is fine now.

finis

So anyway, I have no idea how to watch for lyme disease in hair. I am sort of hoping that it was the wood ticks we have been seeing lots of instead of a deer tick which are supposed to be the usual culprits for Lyme disease. I have to tell you that my response had nothing to do with disease or any such thing it was the tick itself. eww ick ick gag I can’t think of anything I hate more. I don’t tend to have problems with creepy crawlies usually. What is a tick’s part in the food chain? Does it do any harm to anything to make them go away for good?

2

Deer ticks are very very small. I’m sure it was a regular ol’ tick.

3

Thing is that it had been there for a bit, so it was filled up a bit. I think the deer ticks get big too when they are filling up. ( It was sort of 3/8 of an inch long and pinkish sort of skin colored if you happen to be a fair caucasion, and still kind of flat. I remember them getting really round and kind of bulue. when they got really big on dogs. Ok heaving again gonna go throw up.

4

that’s why you have our great world on internet…off to google!

btw, you should contact your doctor for more accurate information.
i’ve heard that it’s better to take the tick out with tweezerz, holding the tick by the head.

5

Actually I did crap loads of research on ticks yesterday, when I discovered one on my kitty cat…

The ticks that tend to carry Lymes Disease are mainly Ixodes scapularis (deer ticks), which look like this.
(you might not wanna look at that if you’re still feeling icky)

They take about 10-12 hours to fill up, and it’s only generally after that that they can infect you. There is no real way to make them “back out”
Alcohol is pretty much one of the only things that is guaranteed to kill them, so putting a drop on that on the tick might make it loosen it’s grip, you then gotta pull it out with tweezers. Dont twist and don’t squeeze the arse or it’ll regurgitate back into you, and it’s the saliva that carried the germs… drop 'em in a glass of alcohol to kill them afterwards, then take them to a vet/doctor for identification.
If you start getting fever, fatigue, headache, body aches and joint pain, and you get a circular rash round the tick bite go get a blood test done. If your latest tetanus shot has run out go get another one done (in the UK they last for 10 years, not sure about US).

IANAD & a lot of the sites I looked at yesterday, while trying to find out how to remove the tick from my cat, contained some conflicting information.

But hey, you got the bastard out!
let me join you with an ick ick ick and these little buggers are already on my “crap lifeform list”.

urg!