Tick

[Guest guest]

My son was lost and found safely on Tuesday. We are so grateful to the people

who were involved in getting him back. It definitely takes more than a village

of people to raise a child with autism. He was gone for 4, 5 hours and found in

a ravine of our neighborhood, playing in a creek.

This morning I noticed a black dot right under his left eye, and I wasn't

certain whether it was a tick or not. If it was a tick, it must have been there

since Tuesday. To be safe, we took him to emergency room. The minute he walked

into the exam room he was anxious and in panic. He had some bad experiences

there in the past, when he went there for another tick removal. One time the

tick was broken, the doctor cut his skin to remove the mouth piece of the tick,

and he got one stitch.

Anyway, this morning he refused to get looked at, screaming and crying. The

doctor told us that " the black dot was so small that it might not be tick. "

Case dismissed.

We went to a neighborhood hardware store to get a magnification glass, and sat

down with him on the curbside of the parking lot to look closer at it. We could

now clearly see the outlines: The body, the head, even the legs. My husband

decided to remove it himself, so we went and purchased a couple of different

tweezers that he thought he might be able to use.

Once back home, we tried to seat our son in a garden chair in our backyard, and

talk to him about what we were going to do. Although he did not have the same

anxiety as back at the hospital, he also did not allow my husband to get too

close with the tweezers to do the job. So, instead, we waited until he was

asleep tonight, and my husband tried again.

With my son sleeping, my husband tried again. As he approached the tick with

the tweezers, my son's eyes twitched a couple of times, but he eventually

grabbed the tick and carefully rocked it from side to side while pulling

outwards. After a few seconds, the tick let go. My son continued to sleep.

(My husband is my hero now.)

He placed the tick in a plastic container to send California Public Health Labs

for testing (Is this a right place to send for free tick testing?). We took

some photos and a video clip of it:

http://home.slett.net/~limin/photos/2010-07-31-tick-under-eye-2.jpg

http://home.slett.net/~limin/videos/2010-07-31-tick-detached.m4v (10MB)

Anyone recognizes what species this one belongs?

http://home.slett.net/~limin/photos/2010-07-31-tick-topside.jpg

http://home.slett.net/~limin/photos/2010-07-31-tick-underside.jpg

I pray hard for no more tick bites on my son. This was the 4th live tick we

found on him. Lesson learned. If this ever happens again to anyone in our

house, we will most certainly not go to the emergency room. Our family have

been through emotional turmoils and stress for the past few days, so I do not

have the energy to go back to the emergency room to " educate " the doctor.

I need to dig out 's previous post of a recipe for natural tick spray and

use essential oil to make a bottle.

Limin