Ticked Off

Do you ever have one of those days when you feel like a failure as a mother? I had one yesterday.

It all began Monday when we went for a hike. We got caught in a rainstorm and forgot our snack bag in the pickup but that is another post.

Fast forward to Friday morning. The girls were brushing their teeth and I was combing their hair. Princess wanted pigtails. As I started to brush her hair she said her head hurt. I asked her if she hit her head on something and she said no. I started to part her hair looking for a bump and found a tick. Yes, a tick. A wood tick to be exact.

I’m sure you have already done the math. Four days. It had probably been there since Monday. Four days a parasite had been living on my child and I didn’t notice.

In my defense, both Nana and myself had bathed and shampooed Princess since Monday. I combed her hair every morning this week. Great Grandma M even brushed her hair on Thursday afternoon. None of us noticed the tick. Princess didn’t notice and apparently it didn’t hurt until yesterday.

I immediately called Dear Husband. Ticks fall in his area of expertise. He didn’t answer his office phone or his cell phone. I left messages to call me asap. Then I got the tweezers out. I had all the methods of tick removal running through my head; burn them with hot tweezers, smother them with petroleum jelly, and never, ever let them break off in your skin.

I took a deep breath, grabbed him with the tweezers, and pulled. The second his little legs started flailing I was done. Up until that point I wasn’t sure if it was still alive. I thought maybe he was dead and would pull out easily. I was wrong.

Since he didn’t look like he wanted to come out of Princess’s head easily, I got the petroleum jelly out. I covered him in it. Big mistake. Now Princess had a tick embedded in her head covered with Vaseline. Even if he did pull out I wouldn’t be able to see it so how would I know to remove it. Then DH calls and we discuss all the information he was reading online. Tip #1 – Never use petroleum jelly, it just makes them mad. Check.

I called the doctor and they told me to bring her in over the lunch hour. I decided to try to wash off the Vaseline so I put Princess in the shower and tried to gently clean it. That didn’t work very well either. I am going to be washing Vaseline out of her hair for the next month. I was able to get enough of it off so we could see the tick again so that was good.

DH came home from work. He said he could tell by the sound of my voice I wasn’t going to be able to pull the tick out. He was right. He read online to pull very, very slowly and let the tick release on its own. He did and it worked perfectly. One tick removed completely.

We got it done in time to go to the end of year picnic at school. Then we went to the doctor. He examined the hole in Princess’s head (it’s about the size of a pencil eraser and bright red). He said we did a great job removing it. DH said we were supposed to take the tick to the doctor so I did. The doctor said not to worry, ticks around here don’t carry the really bad diseases and this one probably doesn’t carry anything due to the area where we picked him up. Nonetheless we are to put the tick in the freezer and keep an eye on Princess for the next week. Any sign of a fever we are to come in immediately and bring the tick for analysis.

Princess is very proud of her tick. She showed it to everyone we saw yesterday. Her music teacher lived in Maryland and she said ticks were so common there that her pediatrician’s office removed and tested every single one. I guess we should feel fortunate we don’t have to deal with ticks that frequently.

Nana and I still can’t believe we both missed it all week. The part of my brain that tries to rationalize everything is wondering if maybe the tick was hiding in her coat all week and got on Princess Thursday night. It’s probably not true, but it makes me feel better.