I’ve been meaning to post for a while but I just haven’t had the energy. Most of you have already heard this story, but I figured I should post just in case.
While we were in Germany, ‘les and I went hiking in the Black Forest. It was a lovely, warm day and for parts of the day we both walked around with either short sleeves or shorts on.
I didn’t think anything of if, but two days later I looked down at the back of my arm and saw what appeared to be a tick. Or at least what was left of a tick. ‘les pulled it off me and on examination it looked to have been smooshed some time before I found it. After poking around to make sure that the whole thing was out of my arm, we went about the rest of our day as if nothing had happened.
Then the next morning ‘les found a tick on her leg while taking a shower. She pulled the whole thing out with some tweezers and went about our day. Later that night, though, ‘les and I heard tell of some mysterious disease that afflicted people with tick bites in Germany. Something about brain swelling? Illness years later? Was it Lyme Disease or something else?
We looked up information about tick borne illnesses in Germany the next day when we got to The Hague. We couldn’t find anything about Lyme Disease, but there did appear to be other illnesses associated with tick bites that would manifest themselves a week or two after the bite.
‘les is a little ball of worry when it comes to sudden illnesses generally, but her worry over the tick bite was compounded by the fact that the area around her bite appeared to be infected. There was a large raised area around it and some redness. We decided that it would be best for her to go talk to a pharmacist about it.
Pharmacists in France are the Best Thing Ever. They are extremely helpful and knowledgeable and will generally give you all sorta of medical advice. They only tend to send you to a doctor if things seem serious. Pharmacists in the Netherlands are also extremely helpful but they couldn’t really say much about the bite so we were sent off to make an appointment with a doctor down the street. The doctor prescribed some topical ointment, guessing that it was just an infection and sent us on our way.
A day or two later, the bite was not any better. In fact, it looked to be worse. The red ring had gotten bigger. Celeste was more worried and felt a bit ill. By this time we were back in Paris so we went to see a pharmacist here. They told her to keep using the ointment and that if it was still a problem on Monday (it was Saturday by this time) to go see a doctor.
Monday rolled around and she still wasn’t feeling better so we headed to the hospital up the street. Hospitals in France are a lot like Kaiser medical centers in CA. All sorts of medical specialists are there, from dental surgeons to dermatologists. And you can get walk-in appointments to see people. We asked at the information booth who we should go see about the tick bite and she pointed us to the dermatology clinic.
It was noon when we got there, which was the lunch hour. I think it was around 2:30 or 3 that ‘les finally saw a doctor.
She ended up being diagnosed with lyme disease (!!) and given a prescription of antibiotics. The doctor was very nice and assured her that it wasn’t a big deal. She’ll need to take some pills twice a day for 21 days and stay out of the sun. She’d also have to get a blood test to make sure of the diagnosis, but the results wouldn’t be back for three weeks. There’s a holiday coming up in France, you see. No non-emergency blood work’s going to get done before Bastille Day.
At this time I would like to note that the dermatology clinic had people sporting some of the hippest glasses I’ve seen in France and some of the most casual dressed doctors I think I’ve ever seen anywhere. It’s hot out and they were all wearing flip-flops and shorts. With lab coats. Crazy.
So yeah. Celeste has lyme disease. She’s being treated early so 21 days of antibiotics will clear it up. But she’s still symptomatic, so her joints hurts and she generally feels ill. She’s exhausted most of the time and hasn’t been up for leaving the house much. I’ve been keeping her company and making sure everything that needs to get done around the house gets done. I hope she feels better soon, I’m like the least creative cook on the planet and I think we’re both getting tired of the tomato sauce variations I’m coming up with. Heh.
The non-traveling time has given me an opportunity to label and scan some photos from April and May. I’m starting to post them up on Flickr. I have blogging to catch up on too, including talking about the Philip’s concert that we went to Karlsruhe to see, the excellent, excellent modern art museum there, some stories from Cologne and The Hague.