Heebie Jeebies

I have a weird thing about skin. I have nightmares where a bunch of little spiders will come out of one of my pores. Or one where a pore is just a big hole, big enough you could stick your finger in, with a hair growing up out of the middle of it. Any holes in skin or things in skin really creeps me out. I bet it comes from my "Uncle" Archie - he had shrapnel in his skin from WWII and periodically a piece would come out of him. Just show up, sticking out of his body. He'd scratch at it and pick until he got it out. Then there'd be this hole in his skin that was so big you could stick stuff in it. I can barely type this I've got the heebie jeebies so bad.

Anyway, I tell you about this heebie jeebiness because I got bit by a tick this weekend. I don't know if it happened when I was mowing or when I went to Toast's ride (the parking area was a muddy lot near a lot of trees and water). I'm thinking it happened when I was mowing, because I was so sweaty and bug-pestered that I was just brushing the bugs off of me without really paying attention to what they looked like.

I wasn't sure what it was at first, but by doing a little bit of research, I found that the black dot on my arm with the red circle around it and the white circle around that was indeed a tick bite. No big. I'm sure Lyme Disease isn't pleasant, but I can handle it, if it indeed comes to that.

I just went about my business the next day. I told people I had a tick bite, but no one thought anything of it. One of my coworkers, Debra, had actually been hospitalized last year with complications from a tick bite. I showed it to her at about two in the afternoon.

"Oh, Tracy, the head's still in there! You have to get that out!" My eyes just about popped out of my head. Yeah, I have to get that out! I immediately went to my computer and scoured Google for pictures. I was mortified. And frozen. That was what I had in my arm. I could hardly breathe. I tried to do some work, but I couldn't. I was in no mental state to do anything, but go to the doctor.

I called and made an appointment, but couldn't even wait the hour and a half until I was done for the day. I left work immediately and headed straight for his office. The wait wasn't too long and I kept myself relatively calm in the waiting room.

They called my name fifteen minutes later and I only had another fifteen minute wait before the doctor came in. He concurred with Debra's assertion and was concerned about the bullseye rings, too. He left the room for a moment and came back with a scalpel. Normally my reaction to this would've been, "What do you think you're doing with that?" In this instance, however, I was perfectly willing to let him cut me, anaesthesia or no. Just get this out of me!

A couple flicks and the deed was done. I was immediately relieved. He gave me an antibiotic just in case there were any Lyme issues, but I didn't even care about that anymore. The terrible little head was out of my skin.