Tick, tick

Would you believe I got attacked by a tick? At the back of my leg, where I could not see but feel it while showering. Must have picked it up when I biked a mountain biking trail through the bush and took a spill, landing on my belly.

Indeed, ticks live in Mexico, including those that transmit rickettsial infections like Rocky Mountain Spotted fever.

Randy performed the surgery to remove the tick from my leg, earning himself 1 credit towards his medical/surgical degree. The house remedy of heating up a tick's bum to remove it is discouraged by the CDC. Instead, remove it by gentle pulling, and of the head breaks off, dig out everything with fine tweezers. The watch: within days a targetoid lesion may develop and after 5-10 days you may start getting a fever and other symptoms - in which case, and only then, you start therapy with doxycycline. If you don't you may end up dead. Nothing like this has shown in my case, so I may live.