It all started with a trip to urgent care. It was just a normal day at work....or so I thought. The weather here in the Midwest has been pretty hot and humid. This day was right at the beginning of a string of many humid days. While I was at work, I noticed I was getting really hot and sweaty. Normally, I'm as cool as a cucumber at work, but not today. I started to sweat through my clothes. I began to see stars and I knew I was going down. I made it across the hall to a co-worker, but that was about it. And then I fainted. My quick thinking co-worker had me sit down and she moved my hair off my neck to help me cool down. She then insisted I go to urgent care. I was still a little woozy, so I didn't really fight back. Basically my blood pressure had dropped down to 65/50. They said that all the volumes in my body were just off enough that day to make me faint. I rested at urgent care and drank some Gatorade before they sent me on my way.
The bad luck continued a few days later when I went to the dentist. When I was in 8th grade, I cracked a tooth. My dentist put a "hanging basket" filling in to fix up the crack. About 17 years later, it was time to put a crown on that tooth....to the tune of $900. Thanks to insurance, I only have to pay about $200. However, that's $200 I could have spent on something else.
They say bad things happen in 3's, so you know there has to be something else to try to spoil my summer. On the 4th of July, I woke up early to do a little yard work. I had a party to go to later in the evening and then it would be off to the fireworks, but first, I'd do a little work in the yard. I was putting in some black edging around the rocks in my yard. Just as I went to drive the last stake into the edging, I thought to myself, "I'm a little close to that sprinkler head. I should check where the line in." I pulled the stake out of the ground and it was like I had shaken up a can of pop and sprayed it everywhere. I hit the water line. However, I knew exactly what to do because last Memorial Day, I did the same thing. I know, I know, yard work on holiday weekends should be something I avoid. $80 later, the line is fixed and my edging is put in.
Now that I've had my third piece of bad luck, I should go on living the rest of the summer scott free...not true. Two days later, I'm driving to get fitted for a dress for a wedding I'm in. A rock catches the tire on the car in front of me and pops up onto my windshield. CRACK! straight across the center of my window. I immediately start crying. Lucky for me (haha, lucky), my college roommate Cricket, her brother fixes windshields. So he was able to help me out. Thanks to insurance, I didn't have to pay for the new windshield.
You might be thinking, what else can happen to this girl? Death? Well, that's pretty much a possibility. If you have never heard of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, look it up. There is a 30% chance of mortality if RMSF goes undetected. So how do you get RMSF? Ticks, that's how. I got bit by a tick on a trip to Indiana. The worse part is, the tick was on me for almost 5 days and I didn't know it. I believe I got bit on Thursday and I didn't notice it until Monday. And when I did notice it, I thought it was a new mole. Haha. How stupid of me! I finally had a co-worker look at it. These were her exact words, "I don't want to scare you, but it's not a mole. I don't want to freak you out, but it has legs." I freaked out and felt all itchy. I knew I had to get this thing removed, but I had a dentist appointment to get the final crown put on. So I went to the dentist with a tick on my back and then it was off to urgent care....again. They removed the tick and told me it was a Lone Star tick and it could carry RMSF. So they had to put me on antibiotics. Now I have to avoid the sun and liquor for 14 days! Two weeks of the summer ruined by a tick.
Here is a picture of the Lone Star tick. The one on the right is a male and the one on the left is a female. My tick was a female. Now, I want you to know that these are zoomed in quite a bit. You might be wondering how I didn't realize I had a bug sucking my blood and living off of me. However, the tick attached itself to the small of my back. A hard spot to see in the mirror.
I'm hoping my bad luck has competed its run for the summer....I'm headed to Las Vegas in less than two weeks, so I'm hoping my luck will change for the better and I'll hit it big.
