An Unhappy Souvenir From Tennessee

There is absolutely no way God does not have a sense of humor.

My life is extremely boring, and I really like it that way. I wake up early, go to work a block away (which I drive, thank you very much), come home, sleep, repeat. On the weekends, I clean my house, play video games, watch tv, read, and prepare for another week of work. It is very, very rare for me to divert from this schedule.

About 3 weeks ago, my friends generously took me on an all-expense paid trip to Tennessee so we could attend the wedding of a co-worker. The wedding was in the woods, and it was beautiful. We left Austin early Friday morning and returned late Saturday night, and my life returned to normal by Sunday morning.

Here’s the thing. Saturday morning, after the wedding in the woods, when I woke up in the hotel, I had this tiny bite on my stomach. I live in terror of bed bugs, so of course, I checked every inch of myself and the hotel room for tell-tale signs, but I found none. So, I didn’t think about the bite again. Hey. We were in the forest. Probably a mosquito.

By Monday, the bite was bigger, and I started to get terrible headaches. I’d take Tylenol and they would go away, but the minute the pills would wear off, it would come right back. By Thursday, I knew something was really wrong. The bite was now huge and it looked like a bullseye, and the headaches were migraines. I went to see my doctor who tested me for Lymes Disease.

Guess who has two thumbs and Lymes Disease? This girl.

The upside is, because the bite is right in the middle of my stomach, I caught all of this early. Had it been anywhere else (and because I live alone and no one else sees me) it could have gone unnoticed. It didn’t hurt or itch at first. By the time I did go see my doctor, it felt like fire to the touch. My doctor put me on antibiotics immediately, not waiting for the test results to come in. He told me it was textbook Lyme disease.

So, the prognosis for kicking this is pretty good for me, but the odds I would have ever in a million years have gotten it in the first place is just astounding. How’s that for a souvenir from Tennessee?

Ha, ha, God.

~ Bird