last week before church i found a TICK on my back. there's not a lot more grosser things i can think of, you? i mean we live near the woods but i rarely find any ticks on me. maybe one in the last 5 years. anyway it was little and i got scott to remove it for me. it bothered me- a little bit itchy- but it went away.

til thursday night. i was scratching and scratching bc it was like, kind of under my arm and i went and looked in the mirror and the spot where the tick had been was freaking HUGE and red all around it. i put cortaid on it. yesterday morning i looked and it was so much worse- a huge red circular welt and it was spreading and itching like crrrrrrazy. more cortaid.

yesterday at work in the afternoon the kids were doing a worksheet and i don't know why but it just popped into my head to google "tick bite rash pregnancy."

oh. mah. gah.

everything i read was bad bad bad. it all said that if you get a delayed rash, 7-14 days after the bite, then most likely it's something serious like some creepy tick disease- there are alot of them including lyme. i kept reading and scanned down to phrases like "pass disease to your unborn baby" and then "risk of miscarriage or stillbirth."

you know that horrible adrenaline feeling you get when you can tell somebody is about to tell you some really bad news, like sick to your stomach? i was freaking. i called my doctor's office on my cell phone and explained the whole deal to the receptionist- tick bite, delayed reaction, bullseye rash, what i had read on the internet. she told me somebody would call back asap. nobody did. (shocking)

so as soon as school was out i burnt rubber down the highway to the dr's office. the look on their face was priceless- who wants a walk-in patient at 3:45 on friday afternoon?- but you know what- i did not care. come heck or high water the doctor was gonna look at my fat itchy armpit!

they were, of course, already running waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind schedule. i had called my mom on the way and she met me down there for support- thanks mommy. finally i got to see the doctor, and he said i had concern to be worried but even with the delayed rash the chances it was something bad are super low, but just in case he put me on an antibiotic that's safe for travis and will get rid of whatever it is if there is something.

the kicker is- he told me he had gotten the message and it only had my name, number, and the message "tick bite- concerned." um, did i not go through a 5 minute explanation of why i was concerned, dingbat receptionist?

boy, was i ever ticked.

(snicker.)