ANDRE BEGIN

Back when I lived in the city, it really wasn’t that unusual to get bug bites.

As a child, it seemed that summer was synonymous with dabbing antiseptic continuously to deal with mosquito bites, given the amount of time I spent outside. I can only assume it was my sweet disposition that made me so attractive to them and turning me into a human pin cushion.

As an adult, whether I was cycling, running or just going for a lunchtime walk, I still managed to get bitten from time to time by mosquitos, but not to the same extent as when I was younger.

However, after moving to the country and with more time on our hands in retirement, naturally, we are back to spending more time outside. And when it comes to bug bites they aren’t so much the exception any more, they are to be expected.

Our modest country property is surrounded by farmers’ fields. In essence, we are living in the middle of a natural ecosystem where insects of all varieties, including the biting kind, are in abundance.

I was reminded of this fact just recently in having experienced my first tick bite since moving here.

I count myself in good company. The more my partner and I mentioned it in passing to friends, family, and neighbors, stories came out of the woodwork of other peoples’ experiences with tick bites this season. Apparently, the short warm winter did not create the hard freeze we usually experience that keeps the insect population in check in our part of Canada.

In my case, I was most fortunate that when I discovered the tick, it was still very small and probably didn’t have much opportunity to infect me. In fact, when I first noticed it, I thought it was a skin tag until I realized that skin tags weren’t generally that colour. Also, it hadn’t really held on as tightly as it could because it was dangling from its left legs without latching on with its right ones.

I was able to remove it easily with a pair of tweezers, to wrap it up in a tissue and to store it in a little pill bottle in the event that it needed to be sent to a lab later for further investigation.

Fortunately over the course of the weeks that followed, no other symptoms presented themselves and the spot where I was stung healed beautifully.

What was stranger still was that on a different part of my leg I was likely bitten by another insect, and the mark it left seemed to take forever to heal. Just the same, I was fine.

But this is the underlying reality of living in the country: the constant guessing game of identifying bug bites.

Sometimes they’re big, sometimes they’re small. Sometimes they’re itchy, sometimes they’re not. We’ve been most fortunate that none of the ones we’ve had have spread or led to any red flag symptoms suggesting that a visit to the emergency room was necessary. They’ve just healed and faded over time.

Just the same, we do find ourselves occasionally turning to the internet for advice just to err on the side of caution.

For that reason, it has become habit now that before we start working outside, we protect ourselves with bug spray or, my most recent find, mosquito and tick repellent clothing. As well, after a session working outdoors, we keep an eye out for bugs that may have come along for the ride or strange looking bites.

The great irony is that despite having two sets of head-to-toe insect repellent clothing and an abundance of insect repellant spray, the one time I didn’t prepare myself properly, I sat on the ground to pet Ivy the cat during one of our leash walks which was probably the invitation for the tick to stow away on my leg.

I realize that insects have a job to do, and our relocation to the country has been an awakening in trying to live in harmony with nature to the extent possible. Just the same, some insect bites can lead to serious consequences requiring medical attention. My tick bite was a lesson in not getting complacent about insects, to be vigilant with precautions and in checking periodically for signs of anything on the skin that looks unusual.

As much as bug bites can be a nuisance, with a few careful precautions we can still enjoy the great outdoors and appreciate our beautiful spring, summer and fall weather, even when different varieties of insects are at their peak.

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Sincere thanks for reading!
Have a great day,
André