Neil and I went hiking over the weekend with a group from the AMC — a two-night outing at Galehead Hut in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We had a great time (no pictures, unfortunately, due to an unfortunate conjunction of Neil’s picture-taking cell phone and a deep pool in the Gale River) despite the dreary weather, the insects, the mud, and the aforementioned river incident. Neil took a long hike Saturday while I stayed near the hut to try out my new water soluble oil pastels. They worked beautifully. (If the sun ever comes out, I’ll take the pictures out onto the deck and see if I can get a good camera shot to post.)
Mountain mosquitoes are vicious. When I put on extra bug spray, they thought it was a call to dinner. Not to mention that walking in drizzle and wading across rivers washed off the spray and I forgot to reapply. I got home with a number of nasty red welts, the worst one behind my knee where the hem of my shorts had irritated it.
The welt proceeded to get redder and itchier. It developed an itchy pink ring around the red, and then a white ring around the pink. And hurt. And did I mention itch?
If you live in Lyme disease country, you know these are bad signs. I couldn’t see a black spot that might be a tick, but they’re so small that doesn’t mean anything. By Tuesday morning the thing was even bigger, and I wasn’t feeling very good, so I went to the doctor. And yeah, it looked like Lyme disease to the doctor, too.
So I’m on antibiotics now. Not feeling too bad as these things go — tired, a bit achy, but getting better. Sigh. Not the way I planned to spend my week, but what the hey. And I wrote 3300 words yesterday anyway. So it’s all good.
Ick. That sucks … hope you get better soon.
(But woot for the words – that’s fantastic)