...and I'm not sure which is actually true yet.

Last weekend I discovered two tiny ticks on my ankle. Both those suckers wedged in real good. Drinking blood and sitting pretty.

Now... this isn't my first run in with ticks.

I'm losing track of the number of tick bites I've had, as well as the number of Lyme infections.

To give you an idea of my ho-hum ness around ticks... I keep a bottle of Doxycycline in my cabinet and pop two of them if I find a deer tick on me (not a dog tick - those are no big deal aside from gross).

So when I discovered these two little guys, I busted out my tweezers, pulled them off, put them in a Ziploc bag, popped my Doxy, and went to the pool.

But because I'm in the habit of discussing all animal encounters with ChattyG (honestly one of my FAVORITE uses of AI lol), it told me I could get the ticks tested if I had them on hand.

I wasn't sure if Chatty's information was up to date but it sounded cool, so I followed the instructions. Put a piece of paper in the Ziploc bag with my contact info, put the Ziploc in an envelope, and sent it off to the CAES (I don't remember what it stands for).

Then I forgot about it.

Fast forward to this past Thursday. It was a hellish day. It began with an annoying co-parenting session that I'm begrudgingly attending, only to come home and realize the wifi was out.

I packed up all my stuff and all William's stuff and raced to my parents ten minutes away in time to do some trainings I had on the calendar.

With ten minutes to spare before my Zoom call started, I got an email from the CEAS.

That was fast.

Fully expecting to hear them say "Yep that was a deer tick", I clicked on the attachment that said TEST RESULTS.

I wasn't prepared for what I read next.

It went something like this:

"Thanks for your ticks. One was engorged. One was dead. But netiehr of them were deer ticks, so we didn't test them. They are actually Lonestar ticks. Oh and here is the list of diseases they carry - Bourbon Virus, Heartland Disease, Alpha-Gal Syndrome, Country Boy Fever, okay... maybe not that last one. You must follow up with your doctor."

Cue panic.

With acute health anxiety, and now only 3 minutes before my next call, I logged into MyChart and sent a message to my doctor saying that I was going to die of a southern plague and what should I do next.

Then I went to go teach.

The doctor's office messaged right back (which was both reassuring and unnerving). They wanted to see me right away.

I managed to focus in my class, closed out Zoom, told my Dad (remember I'm at my parents because I have no wifi) to watch William, and I would be back shortly.

I headed over to my physician's office and proceeded to be asked A LOT of questions.

Honestly I felt like they were more excited/intrigued that a new species of tick (and the accompanying sicknesses) were now on their radar.

She said things like "Wait until I tell the team!" and "I am going to put a call into Yale for the top Infectious Disease doctor" and "Look at my chart I can't even find this illness on it!"

Swell.

Long story short, I don't actually think I'm going to die. When I returned from the doctor, me and ChattyG had it out. I went through the history of how these ticks even ended up in CT, hoping I hadn't unluckily come across the two Lonestar ticks in the state while trying to get Nala to poop.

I went through all the treatment plans of all these possible diseases, and concluded that my prophylactic dose of Doxy was the right move.

The doctor called me back a day later and instructed me to go on 14 days of antibiotics, and to head to the lab to get tested for all these things.

I can almost guarantee insurance is not going to cover a test for Bourbon virus, but we'll see.

All this only four days before 26 of my private clients come to Connecticut for a three day business retreat/mastermind/get together and so I just can't die of Country Boy Fever between now and next Friday.

Hopefully it's nothing.

But if it is something and I get treated and live, I'll get to parade around the fact "ChattyG saved my life".

Have a great weekend....

xx Julie