Lyme Disease

I may have Lyme Disease. I won't know for sure until Monday, when the antibody test results come back, but my doctor thinks it's Lyme (they call it Borreliose here, after the spirochaete).

I was bitten by a tick three weeks ago, but I didn't think anything of it because I've been bitten before--here in Erlangen in 2004, in Chicago last year, and I don't know how many times when I was a kid. I remember picking ticks off my sister, Larissa, and her picking ticks off of me. Well, the bite wasn't healing, and then last week it turned red and started to itch-A LOT!

I have to take doxycycline for 21 days, and it makes me nauseous.

Ticks are a real problem here, and they probably will be worse this year, because we had only 4 days of real cold weather this winter. Not only do they carry Borreliose, but they also carry a virus that causes encephalitis. We all have been vaccinated against the virus, and Oscar is on flea/tick medicine, Preventic, which is similar to Frontline. It's a good thing he's a light color, because he's a tick magnet.