Ticks, the Devil's Little Minions

As a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, I didn't even know what a tick looked like. They just weren't a thing here in northern New Hampshire. I thought our vast array of biting insects were bad, but I didn't know what bad really was.

Lyme disease is pretty nasty. In the early days of the disease a coworker got infected. He picked up the disease while training with the National Guard in Massachusetts. Back then nobody knew what the disease was or how to treat it. It almost killed him. He missed months of work and it was years before he received a proper diagnosis and treatment.

In all our travels, my lovely wife and I have not had to deal with Lyme,but our dog had to be treated for it. One time my lovely wife and I were on a camping trip. We picked up so many ticks that we spent a long long night searching for them with headlamps and tweezers. Not only did we have to pick them off our bodies, we had to go through our clothes and everything in the tent. We never camped there ever again.

This year they are particularly bad once more. It seems all we have to do is to walk outside and they find us. Of course, the dog excels at bringing them into the house. I just refreshed her flea and tick medication so hopefully that will be less of a problem. At least most of the ticks we've found are the common wood tick, not the deer ticks that carry Lyme.

Lyme is the big concern here in New England, but we travel all around the country. Ticks carry some other nasty diseases in other regions. To me one of the weirder tick born diseases is Alpha-gal allergy. I know someone who came down this disease. He is now allergic to meat from mammals and is basically a vegetarian because of it.

Yes, ticks are just plain evil.

-Sixbears