Burrs, Etc.

I passed through the last of the waist-high underbrush and entered the stand of white pines at the top of the hill. Breathing heavily, I sat down on a fallen trunk, both to catch my breath and to pick the tangle of burrs out of my knee-high socks. There were at least a few dozen of them - burrs, not socks - and I was in no hurry as I removed them one by one and savored the fragrant forest air.

It was true that I'd only embarked upon this hike to ensure that whatever is wrong with my back would be as visible as possible during tomorrow's latest round of scans (no, not those scans), but neither this fact nor my pain scale "frowny face" were able to diminish my delight at being outside and active on such a perfect summer day.

After a few minutes of plucking, my breath was back and my socks were cleaned, and I was ready to resume walking. I surveyed the rest of my clothing as I stood up, making sure I hadn't missed anything. It all looked fine. Shirt, clear. Shorts, clear. Wait.

Wait.

There it was. One last burr, this one lodged in the hair of my right leg, just above the top of my sock and just below my kneecap.

As I leaned over to extricate it, I marveled at how it could cling to something so insubstantial as a couple of hairs.

Then it moved.

The burr moved.

I froze.

It moved again.

I took a closer look at it, and as soon as I did, I exhaled with relief. It was just one of those little jumping spiders. You know the ones: dark gray, a little bigger than a match head, jump all over the place but are totally harmless. That's all it was.

I flicked it off my leg.

At least I tried to. It didn't budge.

I flicked it again. A direct hit. Nothing. It simply crawled (burrowed?) further along (into!) my leg.

Right then, I knew. This wasn't any harmless little jumping spider; it was a tick. A filthy, life-sucking tick, and it was everything I could do to keep from immediately gouging it out of my leg, caveman-style, with the nearest sharp rock.

Fortunately (for my leg, if not my cave cred), I remembered reading somewhere that ticks had to be removed very carefully to minimize the extent to which their disease-infested body parts and fluids entered the host's bloodstream. This meant that as much as I valued the Sharp Rock Technique's positives (immediate parasite removal, productive use of natural resources, cavewoman turn-on) even in the face of its notable negatives (hole in leg, possible tetanus, possible bleed-out, cavewoman turn-on), the significantly-increased risk of Lyme Disease was just enough to steer me towards a more modern approach.

This settled, I double-timed it back to the trail head, the whole time my mind attempting to trick me into thinking my leg was falling off - it's a tick, not a rattlesnake, mind!, and drove home at approximately four times the speed limit.

Once there, I quickly confirmed that fire, petroleum jelly, nail polish, alcohol, and any napalm-like combination thereof are all strictly discouraged approaches to tick removal. The recommended technique is simply a slow, steady, straight pull with flat tweezers.

With my wonderfully kind mother (i) supervising, (ii) overlooking my steady stream of cursing, and (iii) trying not to laugh (too hard) at my (ahem) slightly melodramatic performance, I finally tweezer-wrestled the little beast out of my leg after several heated minutes.

For the record, removing a tick is not at all like removing a really deep splinter. That's what I thought it would be like, but I was wrong. Splinters don't have scrambly little claw-legs and anchors for heads. This was more like pulling a lion off of a zebra with two broom handles. Fortunately, I'm an overcomer. Also fortunately, I'm pretty sure the entire process allowed me to flare my back up into a pain scale "crying face" in preparation for tomorrow.

Win-win.

P.S. - While conducting the above-referenced emergency research, I discovered that once you've extracted the tick, you're supposed to save and freeze its carcass so that if it infected you with something and you start to die, your medical professional can thaw it out and analyze it and figure out how to save you. Or maybe it's just to make things easier for whoever does your autopsy. I don't know.

P.P.S. - The reason the tweezers are in the freezer bag with my vanquished attacker is that after I finally removed it from my leg, it latched onto the them instead. Not interested in tweezing the tweezers, I just decided I'd just freeze everything and sort it all out later.

P.P.P.S. - The reason that I didn't take any gory pictures of the live tick while it was still eating my leg is that I was too focused on bravery and research and not dying to waste time on your entertainment. I'm sorry.