We Don’t Get It Here

Cedar Valley News
August 1, 2026
We Don’t Get It Here
By Aisha Khalid

A man came in last week with what looked like a summer cold gone sideways. Aching all over, worn out, a low fever, a headache he could not shake. No cough, no runny nose. Just a bone-deep tiredness and a body sore all through. Probably a bug going around, he said. He nearly did not come in.

And I almost sent him home with rest and fluids. The words were half out of my mouth. Because in the back of every doctor’s head is a map, drawn in training and worn smooth by years, of what turns up around here and what does not. On my map, this valley is not tick country. Lyme was a thing I learned for the exam and rarely thought of again, a problem for woods somewhere else.

Something made me stop. Maybe the time of year. I asked where he had been. He spent a week in July helping his brother clear brush on land a few hours from here. Tall grass. Deer everywhere. And when I asked whether he had pulled any ticks off himself, he said yes, one, a couple of weeks back, flicked away and not thought of since. No rash he had noticed. Half the people who get Lyme never see the rash, or the tick.

I tell you this not because the man is the point. He is going to be fine. Caught early, this is very treatable. I tell you because of the map.

My map is out of date. Everyone’s is.

This has been one of the worst tick years in memory. This spring, emergency rooms across the country saw the highest rate of tick-bite visits for this time of year in nearly a decade, and the season peaks in the weeks we are standing in. And the ticks are not staying on the old maps. They are turning up in counties and whole states where, a generation ago, a doctor could say we do not get much of it here and be right. She cannot be sure of it now. The ticks did not read the county line.

Here is the quiet danger folded inside a sentence like we do not get it here. It is usually true, right up until the day it is not, and on the day it is not, it is the very thing keeping everyone from looking. The patient does not mention the bite, because a bite seemed like nothing in a place with no ticks. The doctor does not ask, because her map says not to bother. And a treatable illness gets a head start it should never have had, hiding behind a certainty everyone in the room shares.

I will ask something small of you, and it is not to fear the outdoors. Go outside. The woods and tall grass are still good for you, and most tick bites give you nothing worse than an itch.

But this summer, help your doctor update her map. If you have been somewhere with grass and trees and deer, say so, even if it feels beside the point. If you pulled a tick off yourself, found a strange spreading ring on your skin, or cannot shake a summer flu behaving oddly for one, mention it. Put the pin in the map yourself. You need not demand anything, or diagnose anything. You only have to say the small thing which does not seem worth saying, so the person across from you is not leaning on a map which quietly stopped being true a few years back.

The man with the summer cold is on the mend. He got there because, for no reason I can point to, I asked one more question instead of reaching for the pad.

The best medicine I practiced was a little distrust of my own map. I would rather you not count on me, or any tired doctor at the end of a long day, to summon it every time. Help me. Tell me where you have been. Tell me about the bite you already decided was nothing. A map is only as current as the person willing to say, here is where I actually was.

Cedar Valley News has a Facebook group. If you have comments and want to join the conversation, you are welcome. What is the thing you almost did not mention to your doctor, and were glad you did? Come and tell us. And if we get something wrong, tell us, and we will run the correction. https://bit.ly/40p8jKy

Cedar Valley News is free, and it comes to your inbox every morning, six days a week. If this morning’s editorial was worth your time, please forward it to someone who would value it. And if someone forwarded it to you and you’d like your own each morning, just reply with the word “subscribe.”

This editorial is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series, written by Evan Swensen, Publisher, and Claude Marshall, AI Developmental Editor. While the people, town, and patient of Cedar Valley are fictional, the season is real. The United States is seeing an unusually heavy tick year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, weekly rates of emergency-room visits for tick bites this spring reached their highest level for the time of year in nearly a decade in most regions of the country, and Lyme disease diagnoses typically peak from July through September. Tick-borne illnesses are appearing in areas where they were once uncommon. Most tick bites do not transmit disease, and Lyme disease, when recognized early, is generally very treatable. This editorial is general information and is not medical advice; anyone with concerns should speak with a licensed clinician.

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