A New Career??

If you are at all squeamish....DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!! This post is truly disgusting but too notable not to share!


I think I may have a career as a surgeon in my future. LOL. We had a little incident recently when my skills were put to the test.


The day before we took the kiddies to the Eric Carle museum of Picture Book Art, we had been outside laying topsoil. We had seven yards of topsoil delivered....wet topsoil, actually. If you have never laid topsoil, you probably have no appreciation for how much seven yards really is. It is a LOT of topsoil.


Anyways, we spent days laying the wet, heavy topsoil. The last of it was done by Kevin the day before the trip to the museum. We went to bed that night, and everything seemed fine.


The next morning after his shower, Kevin called me up to the bathroom. He had something under his arm....and he wanted me to look at it. The conversation then went something like this:


Kevin: Can you take a look at this? I have something under my arm and I don't know what it is.


Me (after looking): Ummm....that's a BUG!


Kevin: It's a bug???!!!!! (picture wide eyes here)


Me: Yup.


At this point I assumed that it was a tick...but I had never in my life actually seen a tick. So I ran down and did a google search....'tick removal'. I found a step by step for how to remove a tick. Now let me tell you....the instructions are very straight forward, but it doesn't really work out like the instructions say that it should.


You are supposed to grip the tick with tweezers near the head, near the site where it is attached to the skin and 'gently pull', without squeezing, in order to remove it. Yeah, well gently pulling does nothing. I pretty much had my foot up on the counter I was pulling so hard, and this thing was not letting go. So gross.....


Next, it started coming apart (of course)! The thing came out in about eighty pieces. For the life of me, I couldn't get the last bit out (presumably, the head...and the most important part to remove). The tweezers weren't working...so then I moved to a needle. That didn't work either. Next I moved to a cuticle tool...it is kind of like a v-shaped blade. I have to give Kevin credit...he barely said a word, and I basically had to dig this thing out like the eye of a potato. YUCK!!


After the carnage was over, I rubbed antiseptic into the wound (he yelled then!) and then I put antibiotic ointment on it. I have to say....it healed up beautifully!


I am so glad that it was Kevin and not one of the kids! It would have ended up in a trip to the clinic if it had been one of the kids. It would have had to be numbed up before it could be removed on one of them. But, because it was Kevin, I just did the procedure myself! :)


Now I am completely paranoid about ticks.


Bug spray, anyone?