"My Fair Warning"--a nature lover and Lyme survivor has another encounter with a nymphal tick.
May 16, 2013
For Lyme Awareness Month
By Betty Neal
My Fair Warning
For 28 years I have loved springtime in the Santa Cruz Mountains. After 4 months of no direct sunlight, it finally breaks through around March, and stays over our property through October, than its gone again, and I'm forced to deal with the harsh winters that mountain living brings. I take full advantage of our California spring & summer sunshine, and spend many hours basking my achy body under the tall redwood trees surrounding our home. We have a beautiful creek running alongside our house that invites birds, dragonflies, butterflies, bees, deer, coyote, bobcats and mountain lions to drink from. Further up Bean Creek, steelhead trout get caught in still pools, waiting for the next rain storm to help flush them to the ocean. I love the peaceful sounds of nature in our mountains. Cooper and red-tail hawks are a constant sight, and their familiar calls ring out from dawn to dusk. Dove and pigeons grace the area and brings me peace with their gentle coo's. Owls come out late evening and begin a hooting ritual back and forth, and we can see them sitting on power lines while driving on our road at nighttime. I delight in watching squirrels argue for the walnuts I place in a dry birdbath situated in our front yard. They chase each other up a redwood tree trunk, spiraling up & around until they reach a limb, than jump like monkeys to a branch of another tree, shaking their tails and ranting at each other. I even love the squawk of blue jays which is tempered by the sweet songs of chickadees, junco, robin and finch. I love the smell of the springtime mountains, especially while on a walk, when a gentle breeze carries the scent of warm redwood, eucalyptus, manzanita, madrone and acacia trees. Sweet wild honeysuckle, lupine and forget-me-not flowers permeate the air. At night the crickets chirp, frogs ribbit, bats fly low, stars sparkle brightly in the sky. All of nature seems to be as happy as I am during springtime. Our creator has given us a great gift in mountain living. Who wouldn't want to live here! Mountain and country folk can relate to the wonderful life we live surrounded by such diverse habitat that feeds our souls. There was a time I was tempted by the powerful pull of nature. Once upon a time, I preferred to hike & bike off-trail, and to walk in the creek water. I am drawn to water and used to dip my entire body in the deep pool of cold water just below the back deck of our home. I would walk up & down the creek looking for crawdads or gold. I also enjoyed weeding creekside, wearing only a tank top & shorts, barefeet, no garden gloves. Photography is a hobby of mine, and I would go just about anywhere to get that prize photo, usually off trail or by a creek. I used to pick wild flowers on my hikes, and place them in a pretty vase to enjoy. I was carefree, blissfully ignorant of the danger lurking all around me.
Its no shocker that I contracted Lyme disease. I did everything wrong fully knowing that Lyme exist, but knowing ticks and Lyme exist is not enough information. I was first bitten by a nymph deer tick in March 2001, and developed classic flu-like Lyme symptoms 4 days later, and on the 5th day, I woke up to a painful stiff neck. However, after I was finally tested and diagnosed with Lyme disease, nature continued to tempt me. I plucked the second tick out of my already sick body, after a fun day of playing in the creek approximately 1 month after my Lyme diagnosis. Than I pulled a third tick out of my knee after weeding peacefully by my creek during the summer that same year. How many tick bites did I miss in between? I know now, that most people bitten by a nymph tick don't even know they were ever bitten. Nymph ticks are so small, the size of a poppy seed, that you can't see them easily, unless your are conscientiously doing a tick check and know what to look for. They are seemingly weightless, you can't feel them crawling on you. Once on a warm body ticks get excited and crawl fast, on a mission to find a nice warm-moist place to feed. Creeksides are loaded with nymph deer ticks during the spring through mid-summer.
I thought I got the message years ago after I was diagnosed with Lyme disease and the other nasty tick borne co-infections. I continued taking long walks safely on the main roads, and I stopped picking wild flowers, and stayed out and away of the creek. Nature continued to tempt me, but I had developed a healthy fear of what I knew was out there. Some would say I was paranoid. I was called that word once while hiking up in Pioneer Ca, during the summertime. I would not allow a blade of grass to touch me, and I was concerned for the others who were with me, and voiced my concern, but was told I was being too paranoid.
Earlier this year while hiking on a dirt road near our home, the late afternoon light happen to be hitting a massive oak tree just right. I have had my eye on this particular oak for years, and took photos from a safe distance, but this day natures temptation got the best of me. There is another tree obstructing the oak from the road, so if I wanted that unobstructed photo, I had to walk off the road, down the hill through brush to got my shot. When I returned to the dirt road, I did a tick check and was clear. My healthy fear began to wane and I was becoming reckless again, allowing myself to go off road through brush more & more often this year. Natures powerful pull was obstructing my senses. Here I am a Lyme disease education advocate, who has been bitten by a tick 3-4 times that I know of, been diagnosed with Borrelia, Ehrlichia, Babesia, Bartnella and Q-fever...just to name a few of the tick-borne infections I contracted, and I am allowing nature to pull me back in the danger zone.
Last week on Saturday May 11, 2013, I was admiring our beautiful creek which is lined on both sides with huge fern, wild grasses and large beds of green clover. I happen to enjoy looking for 4 leaf clovers, and even found one the day before on the main road. Surely there is a 4 leaf clover in there somewhere, I thought. The temptation was too powerful, and before I knew it I was in the magical clover bed, barefeet, looking through each clover. About 5 minutes went by when a bad feeling come over me. My senses returned as my instinctual bells & whistles were ringing out. I quickly got out of the clover patch, sat myself down on the deck steps and looked at my left leg first. A tiny nymph tick was crawling up my lower leg, so tiny that I could not even feel it crawling on me, even as I was looking square at it. Because they are tiny and flat, I could barely get it between my fingers to remove it, and once I had in in between my pointer finger and thumb, I could not feel it. For a split second I feared I didn't get it, and perhaps dropped it on my shorts. I opened my fingers and there it was alive and wanting to crawl away. I tried to flick it away from me, but my fingers were sweaty, and the flicking attempts almost shoved the tick inside my fingernail edge. I tried to remain calm and looked to my right leg, another nymph crawling rapidly upward. I squashed it dead with a rock. After completing a quick leg & arm check, I walked directly into the shower and took one of the longest showers I can remember.
I received a gift last week, in the way of a fair warning.
I humbly admit that I have allowed natures temptations to lure me. I have once and for all learned my lesson. I was given fair warning, and I am going to heed that warning once and for all. I know that out there amongst this seemingly idyllic setting, are millions of ticks full of disease, patiently waiting for a warm body to latch onto. Ticks are docile, remaining perfectly still until they brush up against a host animal. The most common host animals are mice, rats, deer, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, dogs, cats, humans and birds. Contrary to the CDC, (Center for Disease Control) independent studies have proven that mosquitoes and fleas can carry the Lyme bacteria as can some other bloodsucking insects, which is why Lyme disease is no longer a mountain or country problem. Regardless, city people like to hike and bike in the mountains and countryside. They enjoy camping, fishing and swimming in streams & rivers. City people have pets they love much as us mountain folk. They bring their pets camping and on hikes in the mountains. Ticks hitch a ride onto your pet, accidentally drop off inside the car or in your home, then acquire you or your child as a host. This message is for everybody!
I believe the second or 3rd tick bite is when I contracted babesia and bartnella. I got much sicker, developed constant fevers with shaking chills, gasping for air at night, intense pain and was anemic. It took years of treatment to kill or to at least reduce the bacteria load. I would be a fool to continue to gamble on getting reinfected again and again.
Yesterday while basking my very achy body in the healing sunshine, there were butterflies and hummingbirds all around me. My rascal squirrels were begging me for more walnuts and the chickadees were all over my feeder. I also noticed that my English roses were popping open like crazy. I ran in the house, grabbed my camera and had a field day taking photos from the safety of my yard which is now protected by a deer fence.
Its ironic that the place I love so much that made me chronically sick, is the perfect place to rest, recover and heal from Lyme disease. I am a mountain girl. Spring is still my favorite time of the year with nature bustling at the seems, and Mother's Day sweetening the deal since that was the day my son was born. Nature has placed clear boundaries for me to no longer ignore, and I respect those boundaries and its my hope that you will too. Lyme disease is awful, ugly, mean, relentless, cruel, complex, calculated, insidious, misunderstood, misdiagnosed and frustratingly controversial. Lyme disease is still the #1 fastest growing infections disease in the USA and is a growing problem around the globe.
Awareness is the beginning of tick and Lyme disease protection. Knowledge is power and lyme is not just a mountain or country issue any longer. Allow my fair warning to be your fair warning. Please watch the excellent Lyme disease documentary Under Our Skin FREE on hulu.com, Comcast On Demand or Netflix. For a list of good sense tick protection click on the link below:
http://www.stopticks.org/
For Lyme Awareness Month
By Betty Neal
My Fair Warning
For 28 years I have loved springtime in the Santa Cruz Mountains. After 4 months of no direct sunlight, it finally breaks through around March, and stays over our property through October, than its gone again, and I'm forced to deal with the harsh winters that mountain living brings. I take full advantage of our California spring & summer sunshine, and spend many hours basking my achy body under the tall redwood trees surrounding our home. We have a beautiful creek running alongside our house that invites birds, dragonflies, butterflies, bees, deer, coyote, bobcats and mountain lions to drink from. Further up Bean Creek, steelhead trout get caught in still pools, waiting for the next rain storm to help flush them to the ocean. I love the peaceful sounds of nature in our mountains. Cooper and red-tail hawks are a constant sight, and their familiar calls ring out from dawn to dusk. Dove and pigeons grace the area and brings me peace with their gentle coo's. Owls come out late evening and begin a hooting ritual back and forth, and we can see them sitting on power lines while driving on our road at nighttime. I delight in watching squirrels argue for the walnuts I place in a dry birdbath situated in our front yard. They chase each other up a redwood tree trunk, spiraling up & around until they reach a limb, than jump like monkeys to a branch of another tree, shaking their tails and ranting at each other. I even love the squawk of blue jays which is tempered by the sweet songs of chickadees, junco, robin and finch. I love the smell of the springtime mountains, especially while on a walk, when a gentle breeze carries the scent of warm redwood, eucalyptus, manzanita, madrone and acacia trees. Sweet wild honeysuckle, lupine and forget-me-not flowers permeate the air. At night the crickets chirp, frogs ribbit, bats fly low, stars sparkle brightly in the sky. All of nature seems to be as happy as I am during springtime. Our creator has given us a great gift in mountain living. Who wouldn't want to live here! Mountain and country folk can relate to the wonderful life we live surrounded by such diverse habitat that feeds our souls. There was a time I was tempted by the powerful pull of nature. Once upon a time, I preferred to hike & bike off-trail, and to walk in the creek water. I am drawn to water and used to dip my entire body in the deep pool of cold water just below the back deck of our home. I would walk up & down the creek looking for crawdads or gold. I also enjoyed weeding creekside, wearing only a tank top & shorts, barefeet, no garden gloves. Photography is a hobby of mine, and I would go just about anywhere to get that prize photo, usually off trail or by a creek. I used to pick wild flowers on my hikes, and place them in a pretty vase to enjoy. I was carefree, blissfully ignorant of the danger lurking all around me.
Its no shocker that I contracted Lyme disease. I did everything wrong fully knowing that Lyme exist, but knowing ticks and Lyme exist is not enough information. I was first bitten by a nymph deer tick in March 2001, and developed classic flu-like Lyme symptoms 4 days later, and on the 5th day, I woke up to a painful stiff neck. However, after I was finally tested and diagnosed with Lyme disease, nature continued to tempt me. I plucked the second tick out of my already sick body, after a fun day of playing in the creek approximately 1 month after my Lyme diagnosis. Than I pulled a third tick out of my knee after weeding peacefully by my creek during the summer that same year. How many tick bites did I miss in between? I know now, that most people bitten by a nymph tick don't even know they were ever bitten. Nymph ticks are so small, the size of a poppy seed, that you can't see them easily, unless your are conscientiously doing a tick check and know what to look for. They are seemingly weightless, you can't feel them crawling on you. Once on a warm body ticks get excited and crawl fast, on a mission to find a nice warm-moist place to feed. Creeksides are loaded with nymph deer ticks during the spring through mid-summer.
I thought I got the message years ago after I was diagnosed with Lyme disease and the other nasty tick borne co-infections. I continued taking long walks safely on the main roads, and I stopped picking wild flowers, and stayed out and away of the creek. Nature continued to tempt me, but I had developed a healthy fear of what I knew was out there. Some would say I was paranoid. I was called that word once while hiking up in Pioneer Ca, during the summertime. I would not allow a blade of grass to touch me, and I was concerned for the others who were with me, and voiced my concern, but was told I was being too paranoid.
Earlier this year while hiking on a dirt road near our home, the late afternoon light happen to be hitting a massive oak tree just right. I have had my eye on this particular oak for years, and took photos from a safe distance, but this day natures temptation got the best of me. There is another tree obstructing the oak from the road, so if I wanted that unobstructed photo, I had to walk off the road, down the hill through brush to got my shot. When I returned to the dirt road, I did a tick check and was clear. My healthy fear began to wane and I was becoming reckless again, allowing myself to go off road through brush more & more often this year. Natures powerful pull was obstructing my senses. Here I am a Lyme disease education advocate, who has been bitten by a tick 3-4 times that I know of, been diagnosed with Borrelia, Ehrlichia, Babesia, Bartnella and Q-fever...just to name a few of the tick-borne infections I contracted, and I am allowing nature to pull me back in the danger zone.
Last week on Saturday May 11, 2013, I was admiring our beautiful creek which is lined on both sides with huge fern, wild grasses and large beds of green clover. I happen to enjoy looking for 4 leaf clovers, and even found one the day before on the main road. Surely there is a 4 leaf clover in there somewhere, I thought. The temptation was too powerful, and before I knew it I was in the magical clover bed, barefeet, looking through each clover. About 5 minutes went by when a bad feeling come over me. My senses returned as my instinctual bells & whistles were ringing out. I quickly got out of the clover patch, sat myself down on the deck steps and looked at my left leg first. A tiny nymph tick was crawling up my lower leg, so tiny that I could not even feel it crawling on me, even as I was looking square at it. Because they are tiny and flat, I could barely get it between my fingers to remove it, and once I had in in between my pointer finger and thumb, I could not feel it. For a split second I feared I didn't get it, and perhaps dropped it on my shorts. I opened my fingers and there it was alive and wanting to crawl away. I tried to flick it away from me, but my fingers were sweaty, and the flicking attempts almost shoved the tick inside my fingernail edge. I tried to remain calm and looked to my right leg, another nymph crawling rapidly upward. I squashed it dead with a rock. After completing a quick leg & arm check, I walked directly into the shower and took one of the longest showers I can remember.
I received a gift last week, in the way of a fair warning.
I humbly admit that I have allowed natures temptations to lure me. I have once and for all learned my lesson. I was given fair warning, and I am going to heed that warning once and for all. I know that out there amongst this seemingly idyllic setting, are millions of ticks full of disease, patiently waiting for a warm body to latch onto. Ticks are docile, remaining perfectly still until they brush up against a host animal. The most common host animals are mice, rats, deer, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, dogs, cats, humans and birds. Contrary to the CDC, (Center for Disease Control) independent studies have proven that mosquitoes and fleas can carry the Lyme bacteria as can some other bloodsucking insects, which is why Lyme disease is no longer a mountain or country problem. Regardless, city people like to hike and bike in the mountains and countryside. They enjoy camping, fishing and swimming in streams & rivers. City people have pets they love much as us mountain folk. They bring their pets camping and on hikes in the mountains. Ticks hitch a ride onto your pet, accidentally drop off inside the car or in your home, then acquire you or your child as a host. This message is for everybody!
I believe the second or 3rd tick bite is when I contracted babesia and bartnella. I got much sicker, developed constant fevers with shaking chills, gasping for air at night, intense pain and was anemic. It took years of treatment to kill or to at least reduce the bacteria load. I would be a fool to continue to gamble on getting reinfected again and again.
Yesterday while basking my very achy body in the healing sunshine, there were butterflies and hummingbirds all around me. My rascal squirrels were begging me for more walnuts and the chickadees were all over my feeder. I also noticed that my English roses were popping open like crazy. I ran in the house, grabbed my camera and had a field day taking photos from the safety of my yard which is now protected by a deer fence.
Its ironic that the place I love so much that made me chronically sick, is the perfect place to rest, recover and heal from Lyme disease. I am a mountain girl. Spring is still my favorite time of the year with nature bustling at the seems, and Mother's Day sweetening the deal since that was the day my son was born. Nature has placed clear boundaries for me to no longer ignore, and I respect those boundaries and its my hope that you will too. Lyme disease is awful, ugly, mean, relentless, cruel, complex, calculated, insidious, misunderstood, misdiagnosed and frustratingly controversial. Lyme disease is still the #1 fastest growing infections disease in the USA and is a growing problem around the globe.
Awareness is the beginning of tick and Lyme disease protection. Knowledge is power and lyme is not just a mountain or country issue any longer. Allow my fair warning to be your fair warning. Please watch the excellent Lyme disease documentary Under Our Skin FREE on hulu.com, Comcast On Demand or Netflix. For a list of good sense tick protection click on the link below:
http://www.stopticks.org/
