When I left off on the last post, we had successfully returned home, late but happy. But the weekend's story doesn't really end there.
Once Carter was in bed, I did everything I could to unpack and leave myself as little to do the next morning as possible, since I would be working bright and early. When I work from home it is very hard to sit at my desk all day and look at something that's sitting undone, so I needed to finish up all that I could. I was finally satisfied a little before midnight, and after confirming that the lunar eclipse was officially too dark to photograph, I decided to get into my pajamas. As I pulled off my clothes, I happened to be in front of my mirror, and I noticed a pink spot, at least a half inch wide, on my stomach, right about where my waistband had been. At first I thought it was a pimple that got inflamed, but it was strange because normally something like that would hurt if it got to that point. When I looked down at it without the mirror, it looked like there was something stuck on it in the middle. For half a second I thought it was foliage or something that got caught there somehow (I just had a sliver last week so that was probably the first place my mind went--never mind the odd location), but when it didn't just brush off, suddenly to my horror I realized what it was. A TICK. I internally freaked out for a moment and quickly realized I needed to get it out. By some miracle I was able to grab it with my fingers and not crush it. It took a good yank. Luckily I had a tissue right there and managed to contain it while I ran to get a bag, since I knew they sometimes will test them. It looked like I had gotten it out cleanly, so I don't think it got too far in, but it definitely left behind a mark that's still there almost a week later. The pink inflammation around it faded within a day or so, but the bite itself has hung in there. I called my doctor the next morning, and by that evening I had a single dose of 200mg doxycycline in my hands. They think that should take care of everything, so hopefully that's where it ends.
I still have no idea how it happened. I assume it came from the zoo. It's a rather woodsy zoo, but it's not like I was in the woods themselves or really anywhere close. I took a couple pictures of flowers that would have been in the foliage along the paths, but nothing that I would have assumed was close enough for one to hitch a ride. The closest we got to animals unobstructed was probably about 10 feet from the kangaroos since there were no real barriers in their habitat. I also entertained the possibility that it could have come from the hotel. I mean, I was wearing a longer shirt, so somehow the tick would have had to crawl under that and then get under the waistband. So, I guess it's not out of the question that it could have hopped on while my shorts were sitting in the room out of my suitcase for a while before I put them on. Admittedly, I don't know who stayed in that room before us--maybe they were hiking and brought back a souvenir that they never saw. It was probably no bigger than a sesame seed, legs and all, so it would be easy for even a diligent cleaner to miss it. I feel like if that was the case it would have gotten deeper in than it did (12 full hours compared to 10 or less if it was from the zoo), but who knows.
Craig and Jacob got home maybe 15-20 minutes after that discovery, probably a little after midnight. It took them a while to settle in, and it took a while to convince Jacob he needed to go to bed rather than lay on the couch and watch TV (he actually tried!). I don't know what he was thinking, since 6:30 was going to come extra early the next morning! But between them settling in, Craig looking at things on his phone (like Jacob's combine pictures) and filling me in on their weekend, and me just being generally wound up from the tick (and Googling to make sure it wasn't the one that could give me the red meat allergy), falling asleep was challenging. I laid there awake to some degree until at least 2am!
In case you're wondering, Jacob's weekend was a bit of a mixed bag. I think it was a great experience for getting him ready for that stuff. They had cool professional pictures taken, and he was among kids from all over the country. He ended up on the same team as a local kid he's played with before, and unfortunately, his team's game plan was to give that kid the ball as much as possible. He's a pretty good player, but it really didn't give Jacob much of a chance to show what he could do. He did have a respectable showing, though, and ended up making the All-Star team, which basically meant he was in the top half of the kids there. I think it was pretty good for his first time, and I'm sure it was eye-opening in many ways.
The following morning went about as well as you would expect. We were all tired, although Carter probably rebounded better than the rest of us. It took a bit to wake him up but by the time he left he said he wasn't tired. Jacob was a BEAR. We couldn't get him awake or out of bed, and he ended up being a full half hour late for school. He was so late that I had to leave Carter home and trust him to get the bus on time, because I couldn't have gotten back from dropping Jacob off in time to drop Carter off on time. Worst case scenario he could have walked, but I still felt like the bus was safer. It seemed to go fine...except that he left the front door open and unlocked when he left! Oy. I guess we need to work on that.
I had to try to be functional that morning because I found out I had a last minute interview for a new big boss, and I was supposed to lead it. Thank goodness a newer member of our team has done a lot of admin stuff previously and had a nice interview agenda to lay out steps and coordinate our questioning efforts. Whew! But I'll be honest, after that, I tried to do some work and just couldn't focus. I ended up taking a two hour nap in the middle of the day (with my boss' blessing). It helped a lot.
When Jacob came home from school that day, I noticed he was sniffling quite a bit. He said it was probably just allergies but I was less convinced. After all, he'd just spent a weekend in close contact, unmasked, with a lot of people. But most areas aren't as heavy with COVID as we are, and we've had every virus under the sun in the last couple months and only once was it COVID. When he wasn't feeling any better the next morning, I tested him, and literally a minute or two after I walked away from it, Craig looked and said, "Jacob has COVID." That test turned so quickly and the line was so much darker than even the control line. It was crazy. He immediately got sent down to the basement and spent most of his time there through Friday. He did sleep in his own bed with the door closed, however. He felt significantly better by Wednesday and even shot hoops out in the driveway Thursday and Friday and went to the Y after that. He'll need to mask for a few more days, but I guess the good news for him is that his last week and a half of school will be mask-free! He did have to get some extensions on final projects since they're so close to being done for the year.
It's been a little nervewracking for me. Initially the biggest concern was that I was supposed to be going to a concert on Wednesday with my college roommate Mary. It was our first post-pandemic show (Needtobreathe, our favorite), and first and foremost I didn't want to miss out on that or leave her with tickets she couldn't use. Problem #2 was that she was supposed to stay here that night. The concert was at Artpark, north of Buffalo, so she was going to drive here, I'd drive to the concert, and then we'd drive back and she'd sleep here and leave first thing in the morning. Well, obviously that wasn't an option, so assuming I stayed healthy we needed a backup plan. I initially floated chipping in on a hotel, but we settled for her driving to her brother's house, which is about 15 minutes off the Thruway in Buffalo, me meeting her there (it was an hour drive for me), her driving to the concert and back (40 minutes), and then she stayed there that night. It was a very short night's sleep for her in the end, and I got home a little after midnight myself, but I think we both deemed it worth the craziness! The funny thing for me is that it was in the same amphitheater where I graduated high school. The last time I was on this patio, I was taking pictures with my friends in our gowns after the ceremony!
The week went relatively quickly aside from my frustration of having to make all of Jacob's meals and snacks and mask up to deliver them or do anything in the basement. I knew I'd have to take advantage of this weekend because we didn't have sports and not being around last weekend really set me back on a lot of the outdoor work since everything really exploded over the past couple weeks. I started by going through Jacob's hand-me-downs for summer and getting them into Carter's wardrobe. I also finished transitioning most of my seasonal attire to summer and finished putting away the spring decor in favor of summer decor. But I really needed to do work outside. Late last week I planted some flower seeds, but my garden needed to be planted, the weeds had taken over everything, and I had more flowers I wanted to get. The entire weekend ended up rather labor-intensive. Craig did a lot of work on draining and cleaning the pool, which never got closed and needed a hard-core cleaning even before that because it was never right last year. In the meantime, I fertilized our fungus-prone plants again, pulled a ton of weeds (like hours, to the point I got sunburn on the small of my back because my top kept riding up), shopped for mulch and plants at two places, refreshed and planted my garden, laid half the mulch, planted flowers around our front tree, and created four hanging baskets. Most of it was in hot, humid weather, but the temperature dropped drastically this afternoon before I planted the flowers. It was exhausting and nearly every muscle in my body hurts! I also ran to Walmart, Wegmans, and Target this afternoon for things we really needed, and part of me is surprised I didn't fall alseep in my chair the second I sat down!
Even though I was super tired on Saturday, Carter and I took a little walk after dinner, right before a thunderstorm passed through. He wanted me to see the garden at his school. His class has been working on it. There was a boy that died nine years ago while attending the school, and Carter's teacher was the boy's 5th grade teacher at the time. The garden outside the school entrance is dedicated to his memory and the teacher's classes help take care of it. It's been really sweet this year how she's kept Cory's memory alive through little traditions, and Carter was very proud of the work they've done. The garden did have a lot of pretty plants.
It was fun to see all that he's been talking about, but just as we were wrapping up, we heard thunder in the distance and that was our cue to head back home. We beat the rain, thankfully!
So, as we start another week, Jacob is out of quarantine and back to school tomorrow, but still masked for three more days. Carter came down with sniffles Friday night and has tested negative twice, but will likely be home for at least another day. I am trying to be extra careful so I don't catch anything before my cousin's wedding on Saturday. Carter's first soccer game is Wednesday, and the boys are leaving on Friday for a basketball tournament in Pennsylvania. While I thought I was missing out on all the fun, apparently we're now going to be back there the following weekend for another tournament! Never a dull moment around here, especially in the summer. Jacob just has two four-day weeks left of school, and Carter is done a month from today. May has gone incredibly fast and I guess that's just the beginning of our speedy-as-usual summer! I hope I'm ready...
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