The Ticks

So I got bit by some ticks. Or a tick. I’m not really sure how many it was.

You know, I love the country. I especially enjoy countryside settings in pictures and paintings.

But there’s something we don’t depict in those pictures, like the guy who just encountered a bee hive. Or the lady who just stepped into a red ant mound.

Or all the ticks and chiggers crawling around like they own the world.

Somehow I encountered a tick (or two thousand) a few days ago and found one yesterday. It was still attached. I’ll spare you the details; however, that same day, I developed chills, fever, body aches, and a headache.

And it didn’t subside. So I thought, “Caleb, maybe you have this checked out.”

So I listened to myself.

I walked into the walk-in clinic. I figured that’s what they wanted me to do since they didn’t call it the drive-in clinic.

I approached the registration counter.

“Whatcha needin’ today?”

“Looked at.”

“For what?”

Man, this lady was nosy.

“I’ve got tick bites.”

“Oh my! My daughter has alpha-gal.”

“She has a what?” My first thought was that her daughter was a superhero partial to wearing leotards and carrying a golden rope.

“Alpha-gal.”

“Please explain.”

She explained that alpha-gal is a red meat allergy or tick-bite meat allergy. You can’t eat any beef, pork, or venison. And you can’t have dairy.

Dear God.

I turned to my wife and asked, “Does that mean that I’ll have alpha guy?”

“I don’t think so, Caleb. I think that’s the name of the disease.”

We get to the waiting room, and I can’t get alpha-gal off my mind.

I turned to my wife again and said, “Man, if I get alpha-gal, I’m gonna be so ticked.” Pardon the pun. “I can’t stop eating meat! That would be torture!”

Two eyes and a mask peeked around a door, “Caleb?”

“Yo.”

“Come on back.”

I meander to the scale to see how much I’ve gained. I follow the nurse along the hall, only to realize that the walk-in doctor today is a lady that I’ve known since she was knee-high to a grasshopper.

Did I mention that the tick bites are on the back of my leg? Like so far back — and up — that it was a miracle I found the tick.

Oh, I didn’t? Well, they were.

But let’s move on from that topic.

She prescribed some medicine to take away the infection. And she ordered bloodwork to check if I contracted tick fever or whatever else ticks cause.

The system was down, so the order didn’t get to the lab through the computer system for thirty minutes. And the lab was about thirty steps from the room where I saw the doc.

The lab turned out to be a chair with oversized arms in a hallway.

“Have a seat.”

I had on long sleeves.

“Do you need me to roll my sleeves up, or do you stick me through the shirt fabric?”

She gave a two-minute lecture on why that was not a good idea.

“I was just joking.”

“Oh.”

I sat down and put my arm on the armrest.

“Wow, that’s a big needle,” I said.

“Oh, it’s not that big.”

“Not if you’re a horse.”

“Well, this past weekend, I was giving shots to cows, and those needles are huge.”

“I’m sure.”

Then she said, “Yeah. And I accidentally stuck myself with one of them.”

Of course, that statement put me entirely at ease.

After what seemed like 48 hours, we left the walk-in clinic, went to our car, got home, and slept.

Then three hours after that, we went to pick up my prescription.

And they still haven’t sent it.

They said the computer system went down again.

The pharmacy is in the same building, on the same floor, and is a thirty-second walk from the doctor’s office.

Computers are to the modern landscape what ticks are to the country.

The worst.

to all of the unfortunate doctors who have ‘seen’ me,
– Caleb