The illness came on like a vicious badger. Fever and chills, weariness deep in my bones. It wiped out the remainder of Sunday like a squeegee pulled across wet glass. When I arose Monday morning the fever was gone and so off to work I rode. On the way I encountered a rain squall and took cover for some time under a tree. About an hour after I finally reached the office, the chills returned with wicked vengeance. What strange ailment this was, with its unusual suite of symptoms. Shaking uncontrollably at my desk, I tapped out an SOS. As I waited for my rescuer to arrive, I suddenly recalled the tick bites I’d received while out birding a week and a half before. One of the ticks had eluded my attention for what may have been longer than the “safe” period for transmission. That’s right, Lyme disease. Cursory web searching revealed a match for my symptoms. Not typically one for alarmist self-diagnosis, I wanted to believe it was just coincidence, but the facts could not be ignored. At the clinic, I shared what information I had with the health professionals. They, too, could not look past the facts, although the blood work they performed pointed to a viral, not a bacterial infection. That was encouraging. To be safe, the doctor ordered a Lyme titer and antibiotic treatment to address the possibility of a non-coincidence. I went home and lived through two days of feeling sicker than I have in a long time. And then yesterday the scourge left as suddenly as it had arrived, like a dark mantle yanked from my body. I felt reborn. The test results have yet to come back. However, the Lyme titer typically doesn’t show positive until at least four weeks after a tick bite, and my bite occurred much more recently. So I may never know if I had the disease. I may never know the true cost I paid to finally find that bobolink.
All posts in category sickness
three days in the wilderness
Posted by sean on June 21, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/06/21/three-days-in-the-wilderness/
infirm
I picked up some kind of spring bug…it hasn’t been that bad so far, but it’s got me down. I haven’t been sick since early last fall when I had a mild cold. The law of averages finally caught up to me, though. I stayed home from work today, mostly because I can’t stand when people go to work when they’re sick and spread their germs around for all the rest of us to breathe in.
On Friday I went to Philly to see Screeching Weasel on their reunion tour. They played most of the right songs, and they played them well, but it was all very mechanical. Ben Weasel exhibited asocial behavior during the show, never changing his expression and speaking to the crowd with a level of aloofness I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed from a punk rock frontman. I never saw SW back in the day so I don’t know if he always acts like that on stage, but having read Ben’s columns in MaximumRocknRoll, I always suspected he wouldn’t be the type to effectively demonstrate genuine enthusiastic gratitude to his fans. Sure, he thanked us and all, and maybe he was being sincere, but it seemed very cold and calculated. I told my friend afterward that I felt more like I’d just closed a business deal than watched a punk rock show. The Troc is a really nice place, though. I hope to see some more shows there in the future.
On Saturday, I lurked around out in the countryside all day, visiting flea markets and auctions, and liberating abandoned trees and shrubs from a nursery’s dumping ground. It was good times with old friends, and long overdue.
Last night I woke up at 3:40 AM and a robin was singing. I knew they started early, but I’d never heard them at that hour before. Interestingly, scientists in the UK published a study that showed urban robins sing later (or earlier) based on the levels of ambient noise they have to compete with during the daytime.
Meanwhile, migration is really heating up. The birding discussion list I subscribe to overflows with reports of returning warblers, while I am sick and/or have to go to work. NOT FAIR! Also, this time of year is rapidly becoming the one rare period where I sometimes actually wish I did own a car. Being city-bound seriously limits my birding options, and the easiest spots to bike to haven’t been that great so far this spring. Losing the hour or more necessary to ride somewhere farther away crimps my plans when the most productive time spent in the field is usually in the morning. I’m thinking that maybe next year I’ll just take the entire month of May off and go birding every day. That way I won’t feel so bad about missing so many bits and pieces of prime time.
Posted by sean on April 26, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/04/26/infirm/
darker ends to days
Well, I spent much of the week battling illness. It did enable me to catch up on my reading, while also keeping me away from work, which is always a good thing. I felt incredibly restless at times, in between catnaps and long stretches of reading, causing me to marvel again at how elastic a day can seem when there is no set agenda. Time off to myself leads to reflection, of course. I’ve neglected this blog, my attempts at musical expression, and inevitably a few other things (keeping in touch with people comes to mind). I could make excuses, but they’ve exhausted their validity by now. I have a house now and that is incredibly awesome. However, I’m deeper in the city and I miss my feathered friends at the window feeder. The overwhelming majority of feeder birds in my backyard now are House Sparrows and Mourning Doves, with only occasional chickadees and cardinals. The age-old seesaw continues to teeter and totter: city versus country, socialite versus hermit. My mind expands but I’m still really just going nowhere. In short, not a whole lot has changed. There’s a strange sort of comfort in that. Maybe it’s getting older and becoming more comfortable in my own skin. It’s like I feel less inclined to explain myself; my funny ways are just part of who I am. And I’m okay with that.
Posted by sean on November 6, 2009
https://sd-stewart.com/2009/11/06/darker-ends-to-days/
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