Thirty days ago I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease and would not wish this affliction on anyone. My symptom was a tingling sensation in my left toes. Three weeks later when my right toes started tingling, too, I decided it was time to visit my family physician. A blood test was given and a week later the results were in that I had tested positive.
The medicine I am on is doxycycline. It is potent stuff and it makes me nauseous almost every time I take it. To counter the nausea, I try to wake up in the middle of the night and take a pill, hopefully falling asleep before the nausea kicks in. During the summer, I would take the pill around 1:00 P.M., then take a nap - again hoping to avoid the queasiness.
Another effect of being on this medication is that my doctor told me I should avoid sunlight. This, of course, has ruined my summertime river smallmouth fishing. But such is the nature of things and I just have to deal with the no fishing edict.
The tick bite that I believe gave me the disease took place in mid April while I was doing a magazine story in Augusta County, Virginia. The day was a blustery, cold one, but I arrived home with two ticks on me, one of which was attached. Of course, it is difficult to know for sure if that was the tick that was the cause for my ailment.
The only good thing to come from my illness is that I have been able to do a great deal of writing. I finished my fifth book, which is on the South Branch of the Potomac and the upper Potomac, and it should hopefully be out early in 2013. Since I couldn't go outside, I decided to make good use of my time.
Elaine and I always thoroughly check each other every time, truly every time, we come in from the outdoors. Yet, doing so was not good enough to avoid my coming down with Lyme Disease. As I have always thought and said, ticks are the creatures I fear most in the outdoors.
Just read your article on Backyard Chickens...we use hardware cloth (1/2")
ReplyDeleteon our coop and run. We also put a 2 foot skirting of hardware cloth on the ground around the coop and run. We too, have quite a few predators around here, so I had to be sure we did our very best to keep our chickens alive. So far, not one intruder, although the raccoons gave a valiant effort at getting in. So that is my suggestion to you. Use hardware cloth. Everything I've read says that chicken wire is for keeping chickens in, but won't keep predators out. Good luck!