I have a cautionary tale to tell, but first, I will say I should be working. I am seriously behind! My computer was just rebuilt, which threw off my groove, lost some of my photoshop actions and half of the images I had already processed from my cousin's wedding (thank goodness for backups! I just have to reprocess the images with half the photoshop actions. Grrr!) It's like moving into a new house only it's a new computer. I can't find anything! But all of that has nothing to do with what I am about to tell you.
Rewind to, oh let's say June 25th, 2013 at 9:02am, my son who is in Ireland, posts this image joking about his little friend.
I cannot say what I was thinking, because I honestly cannot remember back that far (keep in mind that was 2 days ago). I don't think my heart has slowed down to below the rate of someone running away from a tiger. But, my wonderfully, marvelous, loving husband's response is the best! He looks at it and says "but it's a small one." Umm.... I am assuming it was a well intentioned comment, but it didn't do much for my heart rate (because I had listened to the radio piece and knew how bad it could be, he didn't). So, I called the doctor and this is what the doctor said "he needs to be seen now, we don't mess around with that. If he was here in the lovely state of Colorado, we wouldn't want to wait longer than 2 hours to see him." (Maybe she didn't say lovely state of Colorado, I just wanted to remind people that I am in Colorado. He is in Ireland.) Well.. it's like 8pm in Ireland... and he's coming back the next day... I tell him, you should really go now. Now we must PAUSE here, there is something I have left out. 2 or 3 days after his arrival in Ireland, his wallet was stolen. He does not have a credit card and only has the cash we wired a few days ago, then it would have been 320 euros, so who knows how much is left. So, going to the doctor becomes trickier. He only has the money he has and when he gets back to the States he needs money to get on a bus to rendezvous with his grandparents where he will be reunited with his credit card that I overnighted to them. I won't bore you with the discussions of "the doctor can call us and we will pay over the phone, email, PayPal, mail, blood, etc..." He didn't bother going to the doctor. He did go to the pharmacist and she gave him a cream. I "believe" the cream has antibiotics, because I want to, not because he said so (he said it didn't), but believing that allowed me to sleep.
So I spend hours more on the phone and Internet with the insurance and urgent care places before I find one close to the airport in New York - according to the website, they are in the airport - more about that in a minute. It should have been so easy, get on the plane, get off the plane, go to urgent care, be seen, get on a shuttle to the bus stop, get on the bus, get off the bus, hug grandparents, get credit card and have fun. Easy.
I wake up Tuesday morning, 24 hours after we started this whole fiasco. I get this message "I'm going to be late flying in..." Can I just say - I am not making this up. So he missed his flight, and he will not 5 or 10 minutes late like you expect when someone says "I'm going to be late", he is 3 and a half hours late. Cutting all the cushion time he had to go to urgent care to nothing. At this point, it all becomes too complicated and I will try and muddle through the rest of the story without getting lost.
When he lands, it take 45+minutes to find urgent care, it is NOT in the airport, but a shuttle ride away. A shuttle that costs $2.50 in coins ONLY. He just got back from using euros, what are the chances he has $2.50 in US change? None. One shuttle driver is nice enough to let him on, not knowing that this was the first mis-step, Nick boards the shuttle. He gets to urgent care, they say "sorry son, the blood checking station thing over there closes at 7pm, it's 6:45pm we won't have time to do it." Again, I am going to PAUSE. I am in Colorado. He is in New York. He has been up since 1:30am New York time, it is almost 7pm. He is exhausted and possibly really sick, but doesn't know it yet. He has all his luggage with him. I can't do anything besides think - my son probably has Lyme's disease, he should have been seen 24 hours ago and they won't see him??? By the time we find another urgent care, he will have missed the bus to his grandparents...
So, we tell him to get on the shuttle back to the airport and get to the bus station. Well, after some wandering around and mis-direction and several shuttles that will not let him on (no change) and a supposed free shuttle that never materializes - oh, and a rain storm - it has become 8pm and dangerously close to missing his bus. He is less than 2 miles from the airport full of shuttles, taxis, trains and change. But no matter how hard we tried we couldn't seem to get him back there. We called cabs and did all kinds of things from Colorado, finally a really nice man that worked at Medical offices gave him a ride to the subway. To get this over, because I fell like it's gone too far, I will summarize - he missed the bus, had to spend $20 to get out of the subway for a $6 subway ride, we ended up getting him a hotel room (yay! for the wonderful people at the Fairfield Inn for allowing him to stay without a credit card being present! We did fax things and were legit, but they could have denied it, so yay! Fairfield Inn people for taking pity on us!) Breath!
But wait there's more! Now it is now, as present as now will ever be, on Wednesday July 3rd. This morning it took me 2 more hours to find a bus and get a ticket. Today is Wednesday, he has been on a bus, misplaced one urgent care center and is trying to find another.... so much for the 2 hours my doctor suggested, how about 2 days?
Rewind to, oh let's say June 25th, 2013 at 9:02am, my son who is in Ireland, posts this image joking about his little friend.
Gross, I know. Who wants to see that? I am of course referring to the tick and not the hairy man legs, which I don't want to see either. A week or so before this, I had heard a wonderful radio piece (http://www.npr.org/2013/06/26/195223507/the-lyme-wars-that-tiny-ticks-have-wroughtabout) about ticks and knew he should be careful removing it and he should watch the bite because Lyme disease is becoming a much bigger deal as we encroach on Nature and all her little critters. He removed it with tweezers (good) and whiskey (he was in Ireland, I'm not sure what else to expect.) But how often do we hear about some ominous disease and then it actually happens? Not often. So I filed this in the back of my head, hoping never to think about it again or have to see my son's hairy man legs again.
Fast forward to June 30th, 2013 at 12:52pm, he sends me a message that when he gets back we should have it looked at. Some important information would be that he doesn't get back to Colorado until July 11th at 10:32pm. Soooo... I want to know why. He says, it doesn't bother him, but it is a bump and red. I of course want to see a picture.
I think this is not a bad picture, there are socks, a pant leg piece and some grating in the background to take away from some of the hairy man leg. And the spots not that bad. He says it doesn't itch or burn or hurt so no big deal. Well, obviously it is a big deal or I wouldn't be telling you so - but I don't or didn't know that then. So on Monday the 1st of July, he says we should have it looked at when he gets back. I want to know why, WHY is he so worried about it?? I told him, unless he develops a bull's eye rash or gets a fever or chills, he is fine. Why is this kid so concerned about a stupid tick bite, if it doesn't bother him. So, I say after a few minutes of going back and forth - "it's like a bug bite it may take a few days for it to go away." And he says I quote (because it's all through messages on Facebook, so it is archived for life!) "Even with the bulls eye?" Why in the world would you not start off with that?? So again, I want a picture. And damn it if isn't a bull's eye!
So I spend hours more on the phone and Internet with the insurance and urgent care places before I find one close to the airport in New York - according to the website, they are in the airport - more about that in a minute. It should have been so easy, get on the plane, get off the plane, go to urgent care, be seen, get on a shuttle to the bus stop, get on the bus, get off the bus, hug grandparents, get credit card and have fun. Easy.
I wake up Tuesday morning, 24 hours after we started this whole fiasco. I get this message "I'm going to be late flying in..." Can I just say - I am not making this up. So he missed his flight, and he will not 5 or 10 minutes late like you expect when someone says "I'm going to be late", he is 3 and a half hours late. Cutting all the cushion time he had to go to urgent care to nothing. At this point, it all becomes too complicated and I will try and muddle through the rest of the story without getting lost.
When he lands, it take 45+minutes to find urgent care, it is NOT in the airport, but a shuttle ride away. A shuttle that costs $2.50 in coins ONLY. He just got back from using euros, what are the chances he has $2.50 in US change? None. One shuttle driver is nice enough to let him on, not knowing that this was the first mis-step, Nick boards the shuttle. He gets to urgent care, they say "sorry son, the blood checking station thing over there closes at 7pm, it's 6:45pm we won't have time to do it." Again, I am going to PAUSE. I am in Colorado. He is in New York. He has been up since 1:30am New York time, it is almost 7pm. He is exhausted and possibly really sick, but doesn't know it yet. He has all his luggage with him. I can't do anything besides think - my son probably has Lyme's disease, he should have been seen 24 hours ago and they won't see him??? By the time we find another urgent care, he will have missed the bus to his grandparents...
So, we tell him to get on the shuttle back to the airport and get to the bus station. Well, after some wandering around and mis-direction and several shuttles that will not let him on (no change) and a supposed free shuttle that never materializes - oh, and a rain storm - it has become 8pm and dangerously close to missing his bus. He is less than 2 miles from the airport full of shuttles, taxis, trains and change. But no matter how hard we tried we couldn't seem to get him back there. We called cabs and did all kinds of things from Colorado, finally a really nice man that worked at Medical offices gave him a ride to the subway. To get this over, because I fell like it's gone too far, I will summarize - he missed the bus, had to spend $20 to get out of the subway for a $6 subway ride, we ended up getting him a hotel room (yay! for the wonderful people at the Fairfield Inn for allowing him to stay without a credit card being present! We did fax things and were legit, but they could have denied it, so yay! Fairfield Inn people for taking pity on us!) Breath!
But wait there's more! Now it is now, as present as now will ever be, on Wednesday July 3rd. This morning it took me 2 more hours to find a bus and get a ticket. Today is Wednesday, he has been on a bus, misplaced one urgent care center and is trying to find another.... so much for the 2 hours my doctor suggested, how about 2 days?
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