The Baboon Congress

Tick, Tick, Tick…

46 Comments

Today’s post comes from littlejailbird.

As some of you know, I recently spent a few days in the hospital. It took over a week after my release to start feeling somewhat normal.

The cause of all this was a couple tick bites. Such a small insect to cause so much illness. So much hinged on some small ifs. If I had stuck to the path…if I had put on tick repellent…if I had checked for ticks immediately….I would probably be now blissfully unaware of the fact that I had dodged a bullet. But I did none of those things and when the symptoms started, I kept thinking it was a one-day bug (pun intended)…then a two-day bug, then a three-day bug, and then I finally remembered that I had found a couple ticks on my leg several days before and that I better check if I had Lyme disease or something.

A trip to Urgent Care, then to the E.R., then admission to the hospital. I was hooked up to an I.V., both to battle my dehydration and to get antibiotics (three kinds!) into me. I was very sick. Along with other symptoms, my white blood and platelet counts were so low that the doctors were very concerned. I had lots of blood drawn for various tests. It was the weekend and the lab that could give some answers about tick-borne illnesses was not in-house – which meant the results would be slower to be received than the tests for other things.

Finally, on Tuesday, the lab came through with an answer: Erlichiosis. A tick-borne illness that, the doctor informed me, was worse than Lyme disease, but totally curable with the right medicine. Once I started the medicine, and once my white blood counts went up slightly, I was released from the hospital to complete my cure at home, but with weekly lab work to monitor my white blood and platelet counts and at least two follow-up doctor appointments.

And why did I go off the beaten path in the woods of Duluth? To take some pictures, of course. I don’t know if the pictures were worth all the suffering I experienced, but I’ll let you be the judge of whether they were worth shooting disregarding the subsequent suffering.

 

Tell us about a small act or a small omission of yours that had significant consequences.

 

 

 

46 thoughts on “Tick, Tick, Tick…”

  1. Morning all. Wonderful pictures LJB! I certainly don’t want to be the one who says I’m glad you got these photos since they came at such a high price – I leave that opinion to you!

    I think I’ve told my story before. A trip to the bathroom in the Pillsbury Center 30 years ago ended with a new job that led eventually to my current career as well as my best friend!

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  2. Too bad. Wonderful pix.
    The question: must have been thousands of such things in my life that passed unnoticed. Cannot think of any as such.

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  3. Fabulous photos. I’m at a bit of a loss to answer the question. There was that time in 1969, though, when I worked at Art Materials in Dinkytown and memorized the name of Robin Wood off her check…

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        2. I was being flip, of course. “Marital Bliss” always sounds to me like being preserved in heavy syrup. I think it requires more conscious attention than that.

          Liked by 1 person

      1. Certainly more legal than that. The check was just sitting there in the cash register. I couldn’t avert my eyes.

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  5. I am also having trouble thinking of small acts of omission that had big consequences in my life. I, no doubt, have suppressed the memory of a long list of things like that. I’m sure I have created many problem for myself and others by failing to do all kinds of things.

    One incident of that kind that I can remember is coming home to a flooded basement that was caused by plugged basement drains. Usually any water that leaked into the basement would run down the drains and there would be no flooding. However, the floor drains had traps in them that needed to be cleaned out on a regular basis and the drains were plugged because I forgot to clean out those traps.

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  6. I was tasked with a removal of flooring in a basement. This required sanding which created a lot of dust. I had taken the usual precautions of dust containment but neglected to tape the eighth inch gap under the door to the first floor. The dust escaped into the room above which unfortunately was the display room for the home owner’s gun collection. I know very little about guns but I did discover that cleaning them is a chore. No, the owner would not let me touch the weapons. He cleaned them himself and I put the new flooring in for nothing. I guess that was okay considering that he wanted to shoot me.

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    2. do all his doors have a 2 inch clearance at the bottom? you do a thousand dollars worth of work because he installs doors that dont fit right? dont you have a compressor wit an air hose you could blow the room with. yours is the right answer but it would get to me to do a job no charge so some guy with bad doors he didnt tell you about doesnt have to dust his little show pieces.

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  7. I can’t isolate even one “small” act of omission or commission that greatly impacted my life, but recently heard a song that filled me with regret over a thousand little acts of omission as a mother. I emailed this song to several young mothers and several grandparents. Grandparents get a second chance for a do-over through grandchildren.

    I’ll attempt to post the URL of this haunting song, but I suspect it won’t work!

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  11. I have been known to omit keeping my purse with me. Most memorable was on a car trip to Georgia in 2007, when we stopped at a Wisconsin Rest Area and played a little catch, which we do to get the kinks out when road tripping. I hung my purse on a nearby bench, and an hour and a half later farther down the road, we realized it. I was lucky some state employee found it, and I got it back without too much hassle… only lost 3 hours and it kind of messed up our evening plans.

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  12. Just before visiting the BWCA for the first time, I read a book that harped on the importance of keeping gear to the minimum in order to reduce the weight one would have to carry. So I didn’t bring a belt for my pants. When I took on my first portage–a brutal scramble up and down a ridge covered with boulders–my pants kept falling to my ankles, forcing me to hike up and downhill for half a mile waddling like a duck . . . a duck carrying a heavy pack. The nice thing about that kind of mistake is that you never make it again.

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    3. Steve’s story reminds me of a story.

      One day, quite a few years ago, I noticed a car pull up in front of my house and several young men got out. The car pulled away and just then several other young men came running through an empty lot across the street, yelling and running towards the first group of young men.

      The first group scattered. However, one of those young men had a problem with his pants – he was wearing them very low, and when he started running away, the pants went down and tripped him up. There he was, trying to get away, pulling up his pants, then having them go down again – over and over. I just bust out laughing.

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  13. It sounds like you’re feeling pretty well recovered, ljb – is that right? I do enjoy these photos (except for the non-ljb tick… eewwww). But probably only time will tell whether you feel going off the trail was worth it…

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    1. Yes, BiR. I’m feeling pretty well these days. About a week ago, I had a turning point where I started to feel able to do something besides lie in bed and read and nap all day. I’ve done nothing but improve since then (still take an occasional nap, but only occasional). And my blood counts have improved so much that I feel confident that they will soon all be in the normal range (and thus avoid the need for the bone marrow biopsy the doctors mentioned as a possibility). Now, I just need to get back to shooting pictures in order to really feel like my true self again.

      I suppose when I get the bill for my hospital stay, I may really wonder if those pictures were worth it…

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    1. thanks see ya

      my life has been a series of consequences of the ommisions and acts and the result only matters to me so small acts and small ommisions area relative term.
      small in my position in the universe but all there is in my world
      kindergarten catholic school, jr high high school hippy van school for painting and music business world buying a house at 21 married once married twice business reborn ill keep you posted.

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  15. Just realized that I neglected to learn if the Blevins’ Book Club has a blog (duh!) and I missed the discussion taking place at this moment of my novel, Castle Danger.

    Small oversight, significant consequences because I didn’t get to meet more of the wonderful folks who make up the Trail Baboon community and also formed a thriving book club. Verily Sherrilee and Tim are both terrific people.

    My sincerest apologies for missing today’s meeting.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. Tim says “lame excuse”…but we were looking forward to meeting you. We even have Castle Danger beer. 🙂 We wanted to ask you about Things. Consensus is though that it was a real page turner – well written and really ggod story.

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      1. I wish it were a lame excuse, but I REALLY wanted to attend and meet all the BBCers. Glad folks enjoyed the read at least. One of my main goals as I finished writing was not to bore the readers.

        Wife and I stopped at Castle Danger Brewery in Two Harbors last month and enjoyed two of their tasting flights, then stopped on the way home and bought two “mini growlers.” Good stuff.

        Chris in O-town

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        1. I understand there is a prequel, which I would enjoy reading – would also like to know if there is a sequel in the works. Because, well, I want to know what happens next (or at least how you envision what happens next…which might not be what I have in my head…)

          And just ‘cuz you didn’t make it today doesn’t mean you can’t join us another time. Our next meeting is in October. Plan now. 🙂

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  16. Neglecting to check if our down spouts were properly connected led to the flooding of our basement once. We have an odd arrangement with a well in our back yard that was once used by the crackpot who used to live here for all the water for the house. That means there is a hole in the foundation through which a pipe from the well comes into the house, goes into a large blue tank that has a pump attached, and then goes back up out of the house to an outside faucet for lawn watering. We had city water attached when we moved in, and used the well water for the lawn. Well, that doesn’t work anymore because the blue tank and pump are on the fritz. We had a torrential rain many years back and the down spout nearest the hole in the foundation wasn’t connected, so the rain water came in through the hole. We had to replace all the carpet in the basement.

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    1. sounds like you are lucky that all it was
      is the well water good water. i would thing it may be better than the city water. fixing the pump on the blue tank cant be anything at all. as for the hole. plug it up…

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  17. Our city water is much better than the well water, which is heavily alkaline. I think it is just a rubber bladder in the tank that needs to be replaced. we have tried plugging the hole, but it is harder to do than a person would think. We haven;’t had any more mishaps with the down spouts and the basement is dry.

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  19. TO Anna and all BBCers. I will definitely plan on attending the next book club meeting in October. Now that I know where to check for the info, I’ll be sure to watch for the date and time.

    Chris in Owatonna

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