So. Leiden came home from Trek on Saturday and immediately took a shower. In the bathroom she threw all her clothes in a pile on the floor instead of in a hamper. She cleaned up and we took her to her dad's house for the rest of the weekend and this week while they go out of town on a trip to Curacao. Yesterday I went in to gather up the clothes to wash them, and saw a little bug on her shirt. I thought it was a spider, so I quickly got a piece of paper to get it to crawl onto, and I realized...that bug was a tick. I ran into our room to have Jon look at it to verify, and yes. There was a tick on the pile of clothes Leiden took off her body yesterday.
Jon's sister Tara contracted Lyme disease, likely from a tick, and has suffered years of illness, so Jon was understandably very upset and worried. We carefully put the tick in a baggie, as Tara said she could analyze it at work in one of the panels they're testing. And then Jon and I went through all the fabric items in the bathroom to make sure it was alone, and then I threw all of them into the dryer on high for 10 minutes, which kills them by drying them out. We examined all her gear from Trek, and vacuumed the floor to hopefully rid us of any other hitchhikers.
We called Brad to have him and Annie check Leiden over to make sure none were in her skin, and to make sure she had no bites. We tried to impress upon them the importance of this, but I feared they were too nonchalant about the whole thing. He called back a bit later to say she looked fine, but that they'd keep an eye on her during the trip. I was very firm, and insisted that if she so much as said she was tired to take her immediately to urgent care so she could be treated.
What made this so scary is if it was on her clothing, it was on her clothing the whole trip home, and that's just scary. And we realized it also meant every other kid probably had lots of exposure to ticks. So I sent an email to the Stake Young Women's president, who happens to be in our ward, and told her what we had found, and suggested she let the whole stake know about the find, and tell them the warning signs to watch for if a youth got sick.
Tara took a picture of the bug before it was ground up to go into the panel. The tick was carrying Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which was also relayed to Sister Walker. SOOOO gross, and now we are paranoid!!
Luckily Zada is oblivious, and is able to keep her faith and joy in life!
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