Behind the Scenes Minis: Ticks and Spiders

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy D. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. We had our second ever installment of eponymous diseases this week, on lime disease, West Nile virus, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. I had a long there's a longer list of tick and insect born diseases that are eponymous in some way, and I didn't do this on purpose, but I wound up choosing three that are personally relevant to me because I grew up in North Carolina, one of the states where Rocky Mountain spotted fever is the most prevalent. I now live in Massachusetts, where there's a lot of lime disease. And also every year we start having reports of West Noile virus, including detections of birds. We as a society check where West now happened is happening by testing birds in a lot of cases. But then we also have had cases in humans the last few years. And I think I already said lime disease hilariously as I was doing the lime research and I got to the part about how they're the advocacy of these two moms for their families led to a study that was carried out in Old Lime, Lime and East Hatham, Connecticut. That is the neighborhood where a number of people I know live and including people who live specifically in East HadAM. And I went to visit them in East HadAM last winter and my GPS directions were wrong, and the GPS directions led me down a road at vehicle traffic should not have been on. After some conversations about this over the weekend, I have decided that it might have been intended as a snowmobile trail because there were moguls on it. And I was like, I don't understand why moguls would be here, but if it's a snowmobile trail or maybe like a like a like a mountain biking trail, like that would make a lot more sense. A car should not have been on it. But when I got to the part about how there were these clusters of lime disease on specific roads, I was like, you know what road I've been on? That seems like a road where people could have gotten a lot of lime disease that road. When I tried to drive to East Atham, from Massachusetts. It was bad enough that I filed reports with Google about the directions being incorrect and how they should not be sending cars down that road. Yeah. I try to respect the place of all forms of life in the ecosys, but I am not a fan of mosquitoes or ticks. I told you when we started this, I had disease Helarty, and I sort of do. One is just an offhander that our mutual friend that I love very dearly, do you know, she had wes Nile though, And it was like so cavalier because she had been really really sick for a while and we used too many moons ago when we were still in our apartment. Every Friday night we would have people over to just do crafty things. And she had been sick for a while and she had missed a couple and she kept going to the doctor and they couldn't figure out what was going on. And I had, you know, brought stuff over to her house for her to eat and whatnot, and we were trying to be really careful because we didn't know what she had and if it was contagious, right, And then she finally showed up a Kraft night one night and was like, apparently I just have wes Nile and there's nothing they can do for it. Oh she was like, it's literally like the protocol that you would have for like a colder flu of like lwid's electrolytes rests. She's fine. Now, that was years and years ago. Yeah. The truly funny one, okay, is how I came to be perceived by my beloved's family early in our marriage, because, as listeners probably know, we got married very quickly, so like the first several years of our marriage was kind of like us constantly meeting each other's people in their lives and like being like, who is this person you married? And we had gone to visit his family in the fairly rural area and we were outside at one point and I looked down and there with a tick on me, and I was like God, and I freaked down, slapped it off, and I was like, I want to get lyme disease. And that is how I came to be known as Brian's pressy city wife. Oh goodness, wow, it almost strikes me as so funny to tell people that I'm Brian's prissy cityway literally that phrase, because I don't because I'm especially prissy, no, and I you know, I feel like not going to tick off you, especially before. Very reasonable to me. Yeah, when I was a child growing up in North Carolina, I did not know any of these this history about Rocky Mountain spotted fever. It was weird to me that my mom was worried about Rocky Mountain spotted fever because I understood that the Rocky Mountains were far away from where we lived, right and I was so like as a kid, I sort of thought that my mom was just being anxious about things, which my mom was anxious. But anytime she pulled a tick off of me or my brother, which did happen relatively often, because you know, we lived in the country, we were outside a lot, and we also had a dog, And whenever she pulled a tick off of one of us, she would write the date on the calendars smart and so that if we developed weird symptoms, she would have the tick bite noted on the calendar, which is incredibly smart. My mom extremely smart about a lot of disease prevention things in our lives. I to my knowledge, yeah, I don't think I ever I ever had any kind of like illness after a tick bite that led to any concerns about Rocky Mountain spotted fever. I did, however, when I was in drum Corps and we were practicing outside, you know, on an athletic field all day long. Not really in tall grass or anything like that, but like, we were outside all day long for a lot of the day. My roommate, one of my roommates in the drum corps that I was in over the summer, got Rocky Mountain spotted fever and she had to quit because she was She needed to be treated and was It's an incredibly physically demanding thing to be in a drum corp. She was not well enough to do it. And I remember that staff being like, yeah, so she has Rocky Mountain spotted fever, she has to quit. She probably got it here, so check yourself for tics. This is why I'm an indoor baby. I can't remember if I've talked about this in the show before. I might have when we've talked about sunscreen before. I especially if I have a brief outing to make into the sunlight. I have very fair skin. It is best for me to wear sunblock. I hate putting it on and then feeling like sunblock all day, and so I started wearing clothing that is sun protective clothing, and that has the double the additional effect of making it a little harder for ticks and mosquitoes to get at you. Uh yeah, so yeah, when I mowed the lawn, I look like a crazy Victorian clown. I have so many layers of clothing going all the way down all of my limbs. I don't care that it's hot out and I'm turning into some sort of human soup inside. I don't want anything biting me. I don't know. I also, I also have a bugnet that goes over my hat that a lot of time like it is a little annoying to have on. So I kind of wait until I get to where I'm hiking and see what the what the bug situation is, and if it's very buggy, I will put the bug net over my hat to avoid any insect bites around my face and neck and just having them swarming my face all the time. I hate that. Do not enjoyed No. We mentioned in the episode that there is there are clinical trials going on for a lime vaccine. Yeah, I signed up to be part of that trial. Nice I got through the initial phone screening part, and at that point the close places to me to do the actual like going blood work, get the you know all of that. They were far from me and it was going to be like an hour to an hour and a half to get to the place, and that was something that it was going to need to be like go back repeatedly for the ongoing study. And they were in planning to set up a site that was going to be I think in walking distance for me, and I was like, that would be amazing. And eventually they did not wind up doing that, so I did not wind up being part of that study. But I think that was the first time that I have signed up to try to be a clinical in a clinical trial of something because yes, I would like to have a vaccine for lime disease. Yeah, even if it were a seventy five percent effective vaccine, that's actually pretty good. People think about the twenty five percent, but not so much about the seventy five percent is a lot, especially if you're combining it with other strategies to lower your risk of being bitten by ticks. Yeah, for sure. I have a friend whose grandfather is a hunter and had not been feeling well and finally went to the doctor and I don't know what all he was diagnosed with, but they described him as having a constellation of tickborn illnesses. See this is my nightmare. Yeah, because if you're I mean, if you're a situation, a lifestyle, a place, whatever, that you are likely going to be bitten by ticks. It's very easy to get more than one tick born illness that way. I think the last thing that I had on my list of things to talk about behind the scenes is just banned. So many people who were researching these vector born diseases before there were treatments for them, got the diseases and die. Yeah, so many. Yeah, I was not quite prepared for the number as I was working on the episode want me to land us on a silly note, Yeah, let's do that. Didn't you know that there's a reference to dangay fever in Star Wars No. In the Force Awakens in Ma's Kanada's Castle where all the aliens are I e always my favorite scene in every Star Wars film, Give Me the Bar Full of Aliens. There are three very mosquito looking characters sitting at a table together and they are officially the Danae sisters. That's funny. I love them so much. I have another funny thing that I can end on that is not about any of these particular not anything that was mentioned in the episode, but I I went to do a travel medicine visit and in preparation for our trip to Morocco, and the doctor was telling me about how try to avoid being bitten by insects same as here, because there are I can't if she said sandflies or sand fleas, but it is a biting insect. And she's like, if you have like a sore that doesn't seem to be getting better and you're back in the United States, if you need to go to the doctor, like you really, you're gonna need to mention your travel history because there is something you can get called Leishmania. And my face kind of lit up a little bit, and she was like, Oh, are you a clinician, And I said no, I'm just interested in things because I have heard of what I had heard it referenced as Leischmaniasis as a thing that was transmitted by insect bites and can lead to a range of different disease presentations, including one that is visceral leishmaniasis, which is very bad. But the fact that the doctor's immediate assumption was that maybe I was a clinician and not just a person who is fascinated by illnesses. It made me laugh a little bit. I mean, you like, doctor, have you heard of nerds? It's a very common condition if I want to Yeah, yeah, we're around. We talked about Alice Kitler this week. Really that story becomes about Richard L. Dread more than her. Yeah, and also about Petronilla even more than her, and kill Kenny. Okay, first of all, can I just tell you the Kitler in is now on my bucket list of places I want to go visit because yeah, really charming. It's Their website talks about like the way that building has gone through many changes over the years and how it got updated. And then I think the person that owns it now has had it since I'm going by memory, so I could be wrong. Nineteen eighty six and they renovated it by taking it back to the stone walls that it had originally. They have been covered over with like paneling and stuff. They have they have kind of refurbished it in a state closer to its original but with modern conveniences like plumbing and whatnot and electricity. But it looks really darling and I absolutely want to go there. They also, you know, will do events there. So part of me is like, how can I host a party and kill Kenny and how many people will come? Three? Cool? I love it. I have many feelings about William's confession, in particular, Yeah, because this whole story really becomes la Dred gets shut down and he keeps going, and then the next person higher up goes, dude, you got to drop this, and he goes no, and keeps going, and then it keeps happening, and so finally when they get to this moment where William, who has shown up in a full suit of armor, confesses, I believe in my soul that was just like, fine, give the baby his bottle. I did it. I did it, Like I really think it is in no way him going You're right, I am a heretic. I have been harboring witches because he didn't initially do any of the things that he was supposed to do as his punishment. I really think it was just like, yes, yes, Bishop Ledred, You're so right. I really am a heretic. Great, great, great, great, great, Can we move on? I really think that's what it was. Put William Outlaw on my list of people to visit in our time machine, because yeah, were you just trying to placate this dude who just could not deal with himself or anyone else. That's my theory. It is interesting to mean this and the next episode will do really or the next one that I have been working on, I don't know if it will fall right after this one in the order, but they really do establish a lot how much the fervor around witchcraft in Europe that led to the witch trials all around the Western world really start in the Avignon papacy. Oh yeah, that's for they, And it really does seem like it is more than any actual concern about people's eternal souls or their bodies being possessed. Is about a political tool for power. Yeah, and that's I mean, we've always known that that's part of it. But when you look at like how this, you know, if you make the Charlie Day chart the Orkshop, all of the strings go back to the Avignon papacy. It seems. Yeah, we have a number of episodes that have been about which trials and which hunters and which panics and so many of them, like there are other social and political issues at play, and a lot of times some other kind of major unrest, yes, like some other upheaval underlying all of it. One of the things that I'm working on now that I barely have started on, I think is going to have some similar themes. We're also going to talk about this a lot in the next one that I'm working with. Yeah, yeah, it's one of the running thing things of like all of the witch panics and the yeah, all of that. I also just want to say how happy I am that it's October. Yeah, listen, I need Halloween this year. I needed I know, Dan, I need. It's so bad. I've been so crabby, so angry all the time. And this will be just me personally sharing about my life. So I think I mentioned a while back that for a while, because of av and flu, people were being advised not to feed their backyard flocks, right, which that has been rolled back because it's more like if you have waterfowl. But I just because I've been so busy, have not picked up my usual bird feeding cycle that I would normally do every day, and as a consequence, that means that this year we have so many juro spiders. I love it. Oh, it's like they prey decorated for me. My husband, bless him, does not love it, but he's being a very good sport about that. Yeah, but I love them so much, and I name them the ones that live around our yard, at least the ones that are close to the house that I can identify in their separate locales, because like, if you look up, we have some very tall trees on the side and back of our house, and if you look up, it is like a New York high rise in there. There's so many spiders living in there. Yeah, hundreds, probably thousands. I can't name them all. But I do have Julia that hangs out in the windows by our kitchen on our deck. Yeah, and she's getting bigger and bigger, and there has become this hilarious thing that happens where the cat in our house is these days. That is the most like me in behavior. Sits on the cat tree and watches that spider. Old, you really are a chip off the old block. I was on vacation last week and where we were staying is surrounded by woods. You have to drive for a little bit before you get to something that you could call a town. And there was a beautiful I didn't look closely enough. I missed my opportunity. There was a beautiful some kind of orb weaver that had made a web on the path out to like a fire pit that's behind the house. Somebody had pointed it out, and I was like, Oh, that's I'm going to come look. I'm like, I'm look at it tomorrow. And I'm not sure if we just created a lot more traffic back and forth across that path and the spider was like no thanks, or if perhaps nature happened and a bird a bird had a meal. Either way, or we were no longer there so I didn't get to get a closer look figure out exactly what kind of spider it was. Yeah, yeah, birds. We started feeding the birds on the deck to keep the spider population down for Brian's peace of mind. Sure doesn't enjoy the spiders, but like I said, I'm slowly, I'm slowly giving him immersion immunity I can, because they really are just everywhere around the house right now, which is fine. Yeah. I make little videos of them when I go out to work in the yard or more the lawn and web connects to something on the ground. I don't mow in that spot, so they're weird little outcroppings of the unmowed area in our yard that are yeahs are anchored. When I lived in the Atlanta area, my yard also had a lot of spiders. But the lot of spiders I had were black widows, Yeah, which are very beautiful. But we used to get a lot more of those, and we just they have stopped happening. I think they have largely gotten eaten by a growing lizard population. Okay, I could be wrong, and I don't worry so much about black widows for me because they're unlikely to hurt most humans. Yeah, I was not afraid of them, but there were a lot. Yeah, but they can, just because of proportions of body weight, be a little more of a concern for cats. So I don't want them in the house. Sure, but yeah, yeah, I don't think I ever saw one at the house. And I became aware that this was a problem. I had broken my leg and being a person who can't ask for help, all of my plants and whatnot died because I could not get out there to take care of them. And I was doing clean up on all of my sad plants and I picked up I had this little planter that was was shaped kind of like a wagon and it had multiple potted plants and it had a pot that I had intended to plant something in but that had not happened. And I picked it up and it was full of like leafy debris, kind of spider webby looking stuff and I was like, oh, this is like a great place for a black widow spider. Ha ha ha. And I dumped it out onto the ground and there was a black widow spider and I was like, oh, hi, I just like, girl, you just messed up my house. There were a lot of them. I never I did not have problems really with bugs inside the house. I had somebody come and treat the house quarterly, and he commented and said in a very had a lovely accent that I don't want to try to replicate. But he just came back in one day and said, Ms. Wilson, you have a lot of spiders. I was like, yeah, I know, I know. See we have a quarterly bug person to who I'm al was like, you're not going to hurt the spiders, right, He says that it will not hurt. No, I'm sure some spiders get hurt by the whole process. But we try, we try, we try. Yeah, our current spider load in the house is all in the basement, and I did not realize quite how spidery the basement had gotten until we had somebody come do a plumbing thing and I was gesturing. I was like, then that's the pipe where the Oh sorry, there is so much spider web here. I'm I'm the person who's like, please don't hurt that spider. Don't I'm like, caution tape around the spot. Please don't mess with the spiders when you come to that. Yeah, I'm sure I'm on a list somewhere of like every service person that might need to come to our house where they're like, this is the craziest spider lady. Yeah, you don't like spiders, do not take this job in any case. But it's spider season and I'm happy about it because I really need the joy of beautiful spiders. If you do not like spiders, I'm sorry that we've had so much a brilliant spider talk, but I really do love them. I think they're so elegant, and they're such architects, and they're just they're high achievers and they're beautiful. So apologies if that's not your jam. But now that it's Halloween season, I hope all of us who love Halloween can grasp a little extra joy right now. I think everybody needs some. And if you're not a Halloween person, I'm sorry, but I hope whatever brings you joy is abundant in your life, because you deserve joy too. We will be right back here tomorrow with a classic episode, and then on Monday we're going to have something brand new and it's still Halloween season. Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.