Head Case

So recently, while putting Hayes to bed, Richard discovered a tick on Hayes' head. Lovely thing. After about 30 minutes the damn thing was removed and we all heaved a sigh of relief. Until about 3 days later we discovered a large lump at the base of his skull. Yeah; I'm not generally one to panic, but the whole thing kinda set me in motion this time. I didn't say anything to Richard about it at first. I just thought I'd take Hayes to school and quietly phone the Doc to just talk it over. Then, on the way to school, Hayes says to me, "Hey look at all the glitter in the van!" I question him further and he attempts to catch this invisible glitter. At that moment I got on the phone to the pediatrician.

As it turns out, (after much anxiety and pretense of not being alarmed) there is a gland at the base of the skull that decided it must fight this strange invasion from the tick. So not only was the gland swollen "doing it's job" as the Doc said, but the bite area was also swollen. And in fact, the glitter turned out to be dust in a sunbeam. The second day of Hayes declaring there was glitter, as we pulled up to the same intersection, put me onto the fact that Hayes was not exactly seeing stars.

So who's the head case now?