How to remove a tick & tick remover tools

I was picking up toys off the floor in the boys' room so I could vacuum and I happened upon a small round object. I went to pick it up, but the punky soft object slipped out of my hand. It felt like a water logged raisin. I was going to pick it up again, but for some strange reason, I thought better of it, so I went to get the flashlight and a tissue.

When I realized the raisin-like object was an engorged tick, I dropped it again and opted for a dust pan.

I still can't eat dried fruit, and this was three weeks ago. Just ask my mom who I confided in and was with me at Bible study just after this event when I tried bread someone brought in to share. Halfway through I bit into raisin and almost gagged. It was all I could do to keep myself quietly together, for the baker's and everyone else's sakes who was still eating the actually tasty bread. I only made it by repeating, "This is raisin, not tick. Ticks are not raisins. Raisin is food. I can eat raisins. I don't eat ticks. Raisin is food. Raisin is food."

I did not go for another piece of bread.

This left picture is of the Tick Key tick remover tool. Don't buy one. They don't work except maybe on engorged ticks. All a newly attached tick does is turn and its still thin body slides out the slit. I returned it to the pet store in exchange for the Ticked Off tick remover tool.

The Ticked Off tick remover really works, and I'm impressed.

As you can see by this picture to the right, it resembles a measuring-spoon with a cutout in the front to entrap the tick. You put it next to the skin and slide it under the tick as close to the skin as possible and slide slowly forward. The tick comes off without any hassle and either lodges into the triangle slit or falls into the spoon part for easy disposal or salvage if you want to test the tick for Lyme Disease.

Want to know how to remove ticks the safe way? Read on.

Tick Removal Don'ts:

1. Don't pull a tick out by the butt.
   
2. Don't heat tweezers and put it on the tick's rear.
3. Don't squeeze the tick.
4. Don't twist the tick.

All of the above will distress the tick and could leave its head in the skin and cause infection. The biggest reason not to do the above, though, is that they can cause the tick to inject its saliva into the skin and, infected with Lyme Disease, infect the host.

Tick Removal Do's:

1. If using tweezers, use needle small head tweezers.
2. Grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible.
3. Pull straight out.
   
4. If using a tick remover, follow instructions but avoid twisting the tick.
   

Check out more Works for Me Wednesday posts at Rocks In My Dryer.

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Tech Tags: tick ~ engorged tick ~ tick remover ~ tick key ~ ticked off ~ spring ~ bugs ~ pests

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Earth Day Humor: Ways we help the earth & environment

Welcome to
Works for Me Wednesday,
sponsored by
Rocks In My Dryer.

Since yesterday was Earth Day, I thought I'd share a few green living tips--ways we help the earth, and you can too.

1. We open our doors to let air conditioning outside. We want to do our part to help stop global warming and figure that if everyone did this, maybe we could cool the earth back down and once again weather would resume to normal behavior. No more 80 degree April days in Vermont!
2. We throw our banana peels and apple cores outside to feed animals and fertilize the ground by what they leave behind. I hope this will make our sandy lot more garden friendly so we can start growing our own vegetables instead of buying pesticide laden ones from the grocery store.
3. We buy recycled napkins--lots of them. The more we buy, the better the recycling industry will do. And since they're biodegradable, we throw them on the ground too to keep them out of already full landfills.
4. We clean our bathroom once a month so we don't put more chemicals in the air or harm the environment. We like that all-natural bathroom aroma.
5. I make our kids wear holey clothes to keep them cool instead of maintaining a pool full of environmentally unfriendly chemicals. We get most of the holey used clothes from clothing giveaways so we can also preserve money to build our house.
6. We give all our junk to free places like Freecycle or hospice places. That way our broken monitor and printer stays out of electronic landfills in Asia.
   
7. Last but not least, I make our kids wait at least a week before showering so they don't waste water. And that's when they're allowed to brush their teeth. Waste not want not.

No, really folks, if you think we really do these things, you're nuts!

Earth Day is great time to evaluate our lifestyles.If we exchange one product for a recycled one, like napkins, or change out a chemical toilet cleaner to baking soda or vinegar, and everyone did this, the impact on our environment to preserve the earth would be great and our earth would bear us better.

Here are ways The Building Brows really help our earth:

1. We recycle and use recycled items.
2. We avoid foods made with artificial flavors, preservatives, and colors (all chemicals).
3. We purchase decent used clothes, visit clothing giveaways, swap clothes, and give away ones we no longer use or need.
4. We turn off water (or try to remember to) when brushing teeth and soaping dishes.
5. We exchanged a few chemical cleaners for natural ones made of plant bases, and they really work.
6. We shower instead of bathe to preserve water.
7. We carpool and/or consolidate trips in our fuel-efficient Kia Spectra.

We also have the option to purchase greener electric power that comes from wind sources instead of filthy coal-burning plants at a slight price increase. We may look at this in the future for a self-appointed portion of our bill. Perhaps your electric company also offers a greener power alternative.


Hope you enjoyed this Works for Me Wednesday post and will consider what one thing you can add or change to make an environmental difference on the earth for all who live on it.

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Tech Tags: Earth Day ~ environment ~ tips ~ green ~ Works for Me Wednesday

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April summer; Warning--Heat exhaustion/stroke danger in covering infants from sun during high temps

This April weather is outrageous--70s. Forecasters predict a high of 77 degrees today and 80 tomorrow. April in Vermont isn't supposed to have weather like this. It's usually rainy, and we've had very little rain so far. You know, April showers bring May flowers, not April summers bring May bummers.

This means we've hit summer in our mobile home. Today's temp indoors will reach mid to upper 80s thanks to the sauna properties of this building that just soaks up all the outdoor elements: freeze in winter, roast in summer (and apparently in spring 2008). I don't want to be here for Wednesday.

We've already had to pull out the fan, and might have to consider the air conditioner if temps stay up. NT's intolerance to heat necessitate some type of cooling system so he doesn't get heat exhaustion which is nasty stuff. He almost died from it when he was one year old.

We were at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire during a week-long camping trip. Temps that day reached 100 degrees and not one place on the strip had air conditioning. I was suffering from heat exhaustion myself with a splitting headache I never want to experience again. When I checked on him in the stroller where we had covered him with a towel to keep sunlight off him, his face when pale white and not a drop of sweat on him. He was lethargic and unresponsive.

NEVER COVER A CHILD IN A STROLLER WITH A CLOTH, BLANKET, TOWEL, OR SIMILAR THING IN THE HEAT!!! IT CREATES A SAUNA AND INCREASES THE TEMP WHERE YOUR CHILD IS!

Mortified, we rushed him to a bathroom and splashed him with cool water including wetting his shirt, which I years later learned wicks heat away from the body. Then we placed him in front of the fan the restaurant had stationed in the waiting area that was packed with people trying to escape direct sunlight. During lunch we gave him cool sips of water and he began to come around. We spent the remainder of the day driving around in the air conditioned truck and walking the cool supermarket.

That was a scare I never want to experience again. And so, we have air conditioning in our home to protect NT. Today when he overheats, his face turns a strange blotchy mixture of beet red and bone white--goes all white when over the top--but, thankfully, he now sweats some where he didn't used to. So when we see these symptoms, we cool him.

We'll never know if that incident caused his intolerance to heat or if it's due to a pituitary gland malfunction since he was unable to regulate his temp on his own when he was born. It is likely due to the latter, but the first heat stroke incident certainly didn't help.

How I long for normal April weather. All I can say is, I hope July and August weather don't resemble summer in Death Valley.

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Tech Tags: heat exhaustion ~ heat stroke ~ warning ~ parents ~ infants ~ heat ~ danger ~ April ~ weather ~ spring ~ high temperature ~ heat intolerance ~ pituitary gland ~ air conditioning

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Simple Desk & More Trash Control Tip

Welcome to Works for Me Wednesday, sponsored by Rocks In My Dryer.

If your desk is anything like mine, covered with tissues, crumbs, wrappers, or other miscellaneous disposable junk from various family members, you'll like this simple desk+ trash reducer tip.

Many people probably have a trash can beside their desks, but since we have little space, we don't. Still, even with a trash can nearby, trash accumulates quickly and we don't always want to disrupt work long enough to get up or swing around to throw stuff away.

To remedy this, I keep an emptied tissue box, preferably pop-up, within arm's length. I can dump dirty tissues or whatnot in it without disrupting my train of thought and keep my work space clear, which helps me be more efficient. At the end of the day or at break time, I dump it in the nearest trash can and return it to its spot.

This small decorative box still adds to decor while serving a great function. Plus it's portable and can be used anywhere in the house you need an extra trash collector but don't want to place an extra trash can. Works great in the kids' rooms or when someone's sporting a cold that produces mounds of tissues. I can assign an emptied box per child that gets used during the cold and then discarded or recycled once they recover.

Works for me! Try it. You might like it too.

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Tech Tags: trash tip health household Works for Me Wednesday organization

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Thyroid Tumor Results

Just found out this afternoon. My thyroid tumor is benign with no trace of pre-cancerous cells.

YAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answered prayer! REJOICE!

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Technorati Tags: health ^ thyroid tumor ^ results

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Devastating Vehicle Accidents Today

My heart is breaking today.

On the news, I saw that an eight-year-old girl was seriously injured this morning in a nearby town when an 86-year-old man lost control of his vehicle after dropping off his wife for Super Tuesday voting. His vehicle pinned the second grader to the outside wall of her elementary school. Worse, her classmates saw it and are coping today with the fear and worry for their friend.

Everyone, including the man, must also be devastated. According to reports, his gas pedal stuck. If he were wearing clunky boots, that can happen easily.

And then Jim calls me from travel on the interstate this afternoon. (Slushy ice storm last night made roads a mess today.) A tractor trailer truck lost control of his truck this morning, hit guard rails on a bridge, and part or all of it went over. I don't know if his truck first dangled on the edge allowing him to escape before he plummeted to the street below. If he was unable to escape, he is certainly dead.

(Update: Jim just came home with reports from someone who lived nearby who said he heard the man screaming for help, but no one could reach him before he burned to death.)

I just passed that intersection last night on the way home from errands and recalled a dream I'd had as a young girl where I drove off the bridge to visit a friendly monster at the bottom of a whirlpool. As I drove by (it was a different section of the Interstate), I prayed God would never let my vehicle go over the side because it would be instant (hopefully) death. I feel like kicking myself. Why didn't I pray that God not allow any vehicle to go over at any bridge of the highway. Did I? I might have. And if I had, would it have made a difference?

How was I to know that very thing would happen the next morning--today? I feel awful. Awful for the driver, awful for the girl and her family and friends and school, awful for the elderly couple. I know none of it is my fault, and I could not have foreseen the bridge accident today on my own, but it still hurts to see such pain and torment. And I feel like I should have taken the memory more seriously than just a recall and prayed harder.

All I can do now is pray and hope.

Funny how prayer seems so helpless sometimes. I know its the best thing we can do in all circumstances, but it's so hard to do only that when we want to rush out and fix things ourselves. We have to submit our concerns, worries, and fears to God and trust that He hears us, listens to our requests, sees our requests as valid and important, and will act. And then we have to trust God's response and timing in His response.

How much easier it is to do things ourselves. But we can't. Even when we can, God still asks us to pray and trust Him alongside what we can and should do to help. How hard. But how important.

God does move in response to our prayers. I can only hope He will do a miracle in this little girl's body today.

Please pray for these people.

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Technorati Tags: tragedy ^ accident ^ kids ^ vehicle ^ prayer

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BYB Sunday: Thyroid Tumor Biopsy & Treatment

Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday.

Continued from What Caused My Enlarged Thyroid?

When I finally got to the biopsy appointment I was sporting a mild fever and felt crummy. I snoozed forty-five minutes as best I could with shivers before I finally was called to the procedure room. The doctor came in and recounted what I already knew about the thyroid mass.

"Not all tumors are cancerous," he said.

Wait. I had a tumor? I thought I had a goiter. But then I understood they were the same. Hearing the word tumor suddenly made things very clear. I had a serious condition, and according to the doctor, a tumor is not caused by iodine deficiency. That blew all my hope of a peaceful resolution, especially when he said they begin to look at biopsying when tumors reach 1-2 cm. At over 4 cm, mine needed biopsy, no question. And it was large enough to biopsy in the office without the assistance of ultra sound.

The doc laid out my chair, put a towel under my neck, and had me lay my head back. Jim says the lump in my neck really looked huge then. My doc injected lidocaine into my thyroid, once shallow, which burned some, and once deeper which hurt more. Then he took a needle that would section out small cylinders of my thyroid, went in from the center of my thyroid and moved it in and out toward my left ear sucking out cells like a liposuction surgeon at work. I felt movement, but not much pain. He repeated the procedure, going deeper. I winced. When done, my left ear ached from displaced pain.

Then I had to wait three weeks for a follow up appointment. Three weeks for biopsy results. By this time, it was January.

Maybe other people would have been banging down the door for biopsy results, but I was like I had been when nine months pregnant with my first child--content to remain in waiting because it didn't require more effort.

I finally made it back to the doctor the forth week in January. I expected that if the result was negative for thyroid cancer he would give me a list of options including watching it to see if it shrunk, which I had been praying for and expected, giving me thyroid medicine to shrink it, or a last resort of surgery.

"There are four types of thyroid cancer," he began when he came in. He listed one and said, "You don't have that." Another. "You don't have that." Another. "You don't have that." And then he said, "the cells in the tumor are follicular," and explained that the thyroid consists of follicular cells like what hair grows out of, only in the center of the follicle is pools of thyroid hormone. My tumor was a mass of the material that makes the holes, but missing the pools.

There was 15-20% chance it was cancer, maybe 25% chance because of its size. But the biopsy alone could not tell. The only way to know for sure what it was, was to remove and dissect it.

He urged me to have the removal surgery. The tumor was simply too big for him to feel comfortable watching, and with the vocal nerve behind it, waiting could only make later removal more difficult or cause me to lose my voice. Surgery would entail removing the entire left lobe since the tumor was so big it filled the whole lobe.

Tears came to my eyes but I tried not to heed them. What happened to several options and trying synthetic hormone? Jim questioned the kind of cells it was and confirmed that if cancerous, it was the kind that could spread through my blood stream to other parts of my body.

The doctor left to give Jim and I a few moments to discuss things. I knew as he walked out what Jim was already thinking. And I agreed. There was only one way to go.

I walked out of the appointment with a surgery date for the following week (this past Tuesday). On my way to the hospital for blood work I prayed if it was the right decision. I felt immediate assurance that it was. Peace settled in my soul alongside the grief I felt for having to go through surgery I didn't want. As long as I was in God's will, I could go forward with confidence.

My blessing this Blog Your Blessing Sunday is that the thyroid tumor is now out and the preliminary results of it taken during surgery came back benign. Stitches and the final pathology report comes this Tuesday afternoon, February 5. In the mean time, I'm enduring recovering with deep gratitude for God's loving care and letting my enlarged thyroid be found before it got bigger.

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Technorati Tags: thyroid ^ tumor ^ cancer ^ enlarged thyroid ^ treatment ^ diagnosis

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What Caused My Enlarged Thyroid?

Continued from The Beginning of the End--or the Beginning?

So off to my regular doctor I went for him to evaluate my enlarged thyroid lobe. He said I could have thyroid disease where it secreted too much or too little thyroid hormone at which I'd take synthetic thyroid meds for the rest of my life. And it could have been caused by iodine deficiency.

That must be it, I thought, rejecting the repugnant sentence of taking synthetic medicine for the rest of my life when my body should be able to produce it naturally. (I'm a whole foods, natural meds if possible kind of gal.) I had ignorantly bought iodine-free salt and never ate foods containing iodine. That was the only good option there was, so I clung to that, ignored the glossed over, briefly mentioned fact that though rare, it could be thyroid cancer, and went out and bought high-in-iodine kelp sprinkles at the local health food store--after I got my doctor-ordered blood work to test my thyroid hormone levels.

A week I returned for the blood results. The TSH test that measures what the pituitary gland is calling for from the thyroid returned smack in the normal range of hormone production. My doc suggested that it may be struggling to do so because of whatever was causing the enlargement, but one thing was clear. I needed an ultrasound to investigate the size and cause of the enlargement.

His office made an appointment with my hospital that week and a follow up appointment about a week after that.

Ultrasound techs must have one of the most frustrating jobs. They know what they see when they measure and take pictures of the snowy images on their monitors, but they must by hospital policy feign ignorance. I'll never be a hospital ultrasound technician.

At my follow up appointment, I learned I had a mass 1.5 cm by 4.3 cm in my thyroid--HUGE--that had blood vessels going through it. Drat. That meant it wasn't a cyst. It was what was called a thyroid goiter, informed my doctor, and they are common.

Well, not to me! Particularly not when he mentioned the next step: biopsy.

His office scheduled a biopsy with an Ears, Nose, Throat specialist in a week and a half. And I knew the end of the world was afoot...

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Tags: thyroid ^ enlarged ^ goiter ^ ultrasound ^ health ^ disease ^ biopsy

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The Beginning of the End--or the Beginning?

The past few months have been very trying as my sparse and sometimes virulent posts of late testify. Wise readers understand that most bloggers do not expose everything about themselves and their lives publicly, and even though I have shared transparently in many instances, I have not divulged everything.

Nor should I. No blogger should. But now that I've walked through the majority of the past two months and appear to be near an end of very trying times, I feel able to share something of what's been happening the past three months.

In November I went for my annual checkup with my gynecologist. Other than feeling fatigued and mentally unplugged as I had been feeling the previous two years, I felt mostly normal and thought I just needed more sleep. And then the midwife felt my neck and discovered a lump. The left lobe of my thyroid was large. Very large.

My stomach sunk and despite attempts to keep my emotions at bay, my nerves flew away as water through fingers. The last thing I expected from a gynecological checkup was finding something wrong with a general part of my body. My stable life mentally exploded.

Somehow, no one had noticed the large lump in my neck that I suddenly realized was clearly visible at a glance.

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Technorati Tags: blogger ^ health problems ^ health checkup ^ thryoid ^ medical

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Blog Design Update

Had a little setback in posting the new blog design--something called surgery. As I'm limited to rest, though, I've been able to catch up with the last things I needed to complete.

A few post transfers and URL updates, and the new design goes live. I'm so excited! But jumping up and down will have to wait until I heal. (More on that later....)

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Hard Start to 2008

Sick sick sick with fever, headaches, on/off nausea, and dizziness. Couple that with a computer crash and a biopsy and what a way to start 2008. I hope the rest of you are faring better than myself at the moment. It's surely been a difficult week. There's nothing like everything going wrong to challenge yourself or your faith.

But everything really isn't going wrong. It's just hard to see that when I feel so crummy. I have many things to thank God for. Remember. I've got to remember.

I'm very grateful to the many people who have prayed for me and my family these past few weeks and for everyone who supported us when we came under fire for our lifestyle. Each of you is a treasure and I thank God for every one. Even those who oppose us. You have all made me take stock of everything.

A friend reminded me of my life verses that I had forgotten at such a crucial moment in life, and I'm concluding it is the end of all matters. From Brandy's memory:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones.

~ Proverbs 3:5-8

Signing off to take a nap ~

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Technorati Tags:  family ^ sick ^ controversy ^ prayer ^ faith

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Energy Audit for Weatherization

Today a regional weatherization crew came to begin weatherizing our house. About four weeks ago they gave us an energy audit per our request and turned up interesting results.

1. The trailer floors are cold and a lot of cold drafts come off the windows and from the kitchen and bathroom vents despite the weatherization tests indicating our house is too tight. (They used a fan in the door to test tightness, but I forgot to turn off the box fan exhausting air from under the house, so the two fans were fighting each other.
   
2. Our wall oven is emitting high levels of carbon dioxide, and it is away from the stove top venting fan so the gases cannot be sucked out of the house.
3. There are too many of us in this size home, so the carbon dioxide levels are higher per person than they should be. This was something we never considered being a large family living small.
   
4. Eight people in 800 square feet produce too much moisture. This has contributed to excessive mold in all colors: green, black, white, and pink.
   
5. Carbon dioxide also feeds mold, so our air quality is the largest concern.
   
6. Our venting fans in the bathroom and kitchen are insufficient for air flow and have no closing flaps.

After the audit, the weatherization team decided they needed to do the opposite of what they usually do to houses, which is tighten them. The largest concern is increasing air flow and decreasing moisture to increase air quality by reducing the molds and carbon dioxides emitted by the stove and too much breathing. (Perhaps we should hold our breaths.)

To do this, they are installing closeable fresh air vents, replacing the vent fans--one with moisture sensor, and replacing the wall oven and stove top with a regular all-in-one kitchen stove so it will all sit under the new kitchen fan.

These alterations mean cutting the cabinet and counter top to accommodate the new stove. As soon as I get pictures off my new camera (Did you hear that? I have a new digital camera that actually works well!) I'll post them and give you more detail. In the mean time, I have to go make sandwiches since we have no stove until tomorrow. :-)

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Technorati Tags:  weatherization ^ energy audit ^ carbon dioxide ^ air quality ^ mold ^ health

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