Wow, I've found the right place --- psycho bird victims unite! I've had male cardinal attacking my windows for 7 months now. I've tried covering windows, spraying windex(it was all I had) on outside of window, aluminum foil on outside of windows(I got creative for a while). If I cover one window he comes to another. He has now found my bedroom. This is from dawn to dusk and I'm not a fan of getting up at dusk! It's making me crazy, I'm smoking more, thinking of buying a gun(used to be a pacificist...) and losing friends! I've always been one to try to see a 'meaning' from the universe in odd moments but my love and peace tendencies are waning quickly. Please let me know if anything has worked ... I've got a lot of windows. Jeez, I just read they can live 15 years. I dont thidsfnk ihave thaat mch tiim lftt.

We had the same thing happen to us, but it was a male. We put in a new window on the side of our house, and a male cardinal flew into the window and 'attacked" it repeatedly... it went on all day long for months. I printed out a picture of a hawk and taped it to the window... that didn't help. Perhaps the size wasn't right or I picked out a wrong hawk... or my cardinal was too smart. My husband eventually put up some chicken wire on the outside of the window.. that stopped him. We left it on for a few months. The cardinal stayed away. We thought we were ok to take it off and when we did the cardinal came back, lol. I am not sure what was the reason... I thought perhaps the male saw his reflection and thought he needed to attack another cardinal? Not sure.. but in any case, he hasn't come back in the past year and I"m happy to not have chickenwire on my window.

To all who have wished me a speedy recovery: Thank You! I am feeling steadily better (1 month out), and expect to be back to full strength shortly. @Alisande, If you think you may have babeseosis at the moment, then insist on being tested. Same with anaplasmosis, both are less-difficult than Lyme to diagnose from blood smears, I believe. (The issue with the blood supply, aside from the traditional head-in-the-sand attitude of the blood industry, and of course the cost, is that there is no rapid-enough test for babeseosis -or possibly the other tick-borne diseases -to work with the need for fresh blood.) But as I mentioned, anaplasmosis has distinct, characteristic, changes in routine blood work that are almost diagnostic. I can check next time I am in the medical library if there are specific changes in the case of babeseosis. I may have that info for erlichiosis, if you'd like to know it. Anaplasmosis has distinctive mullberry shaped artifacts (morullae) in the disease-specific blood smears (as does erlichiosis, I believe). Babeseosis is different but unless you, like I, have had malaria it's pretty distinctive in the blood test for it. The tests aren't inexpensive (the unadjusted street price for them is $500-$1,000 -each- but my insurance company whacked both of them down considerably. Since you're on Medicare, you'd only pay a percentage of the CMS-negotiated cost which is likely to be as aggressively moderated as that of my own insurance company's contractual rate. Since all three are bacterial, not spirochete, -caused it doesn't require the complex analysis of PCR bands that Lyme does. But frankly if I was on my second continuous month of Lyme I would have pretty awful constitutional symptoms from that lengthy treatment alone. I can barely make it out the 30 days of a single course before I have disturbed sleep, night sweats, muscle aches and pains, etc. Part of my fierceness about discovering ticks early is to avoid the need for the lengthy course of anti-Lyme doxy. Since doxy won't really do anything for babeseosis - and other drugs will - why keep taking what may be the wrong cure? I don't think you would experience symptoms from babeseosis or anaplasmosis (or even Lyme) infection before locating the tick. The incubation time needed to get sick from a still-attached tick would have resulted in a deer tick as big as a green pea, a nasty pearly-grey tight blob. It's hard to imagine you wouldn't have noticed it well before getting sick if it was still attached. Don't you itch like mad when you have a tick attached for more than a few hours, not to mention days? I'd be wild! BTW, the tick-hours-of-bite measurement has a built in problem: the aging relies on analysis of stomach digestive contents. But that assumes, and it is not always true, that the bite the tick was discovered making is the only bite, not a second one. Also you mentioned you squashed the critter in removing it. You might want to consider beginning more intensive searches for ticks on your body twice a day in order to not miss one. I have hair so long I can sit on it so I do realize it can be hard to check your scalp and hair. I have also found attached ticks under my breasts, in my belly button, on various unmentionable parts of my bottom, and even larval ones between my toes and fingers. I usually keep my long hair tied up in pigtail outdoors. I tuck the pigtail down the back of my shirt to minimize the likelihood of ticks getting caught in my hair. Of course I always have a hat on outside for sun protection, so my head and scalp are less-common tick areas. I do tick-checks at least twice every day of the year, unless I am away from home overnight in the city. It's just like brushing your teeth. I'm not convinced that Lyme "lurks in your body" but given that it is caused by spirochete I suppose it's possible. (Another spirochete-caused illness, syphillis, has a proven habit of lingering on and re-occurring, often despite treatment.) I know, for certain, that I have had Lyme (from clearly positive blood tests), been treated successfuly and subsequently had lengthy periods of profound physiological, and mental stress, without Lyme popping back up and adding to the problems. And I still have one band for Lyme on the latest PCR, which indicates an old, resolved infection, so there's no question it's still visible in my blood, but not thankfully making a pest of itself. I also still have serological evidence of malaria in my blood and I haven't had any illness from it in more than fifty years! But the bacterial diseases (anaplasmosis, babeseosis and erlichiosis) seem extremely unlikely lurkers and later-pouncers, especially if treated. What I definitely think they can do, however, is damage other organs and systems resulting in consequential, long-term problems (like the poor fellow described above who lost his spleen as a result of a babeseosis infection.) Your description of high fevers, muscle aches and pains, etc., sound much more like anaplasmosis than Lyme. Did you have any "regular" blood tests done at the time? The average time from bite to onset of symptoms with anaplasmosis is 8 days. I could look that time up for erlichiosis and babseosis, if needed. I don't know enough about Fibro, but aren't night sweats and aches and pains part of that, too? You may not need to go to any doctor more specialized than your primary care doc to check for the bacterial tick-borne illnesses. And then you'll be able to know, and treat, any that are there. I didn't get any hint that the tests for them lead to confusing, or contradictory results, as I know the Lyme test can, because it is a different, and more complicated test.. If you test negative for them, including having normal routine blood results, you can cross them off your list of worries and look elsewhere. (And get off the wretched doxy!) HTH, L.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I had never heard about the drug thing. Learn something new every day. Unfortunately it is too far to walk, just over 10 miles, but great for a bike ride. Company policy won't let you take the bike inside currently. And the way the camera was positioned they caught the guy walking away so no face view. Don't know how he got the chain and lock off, because he took that also. Replacement cost is under the deductible amount so no help from insurance. He has requested compensation for the loss from the company because felt that the bike was secure in that location or it is suppose to be. It is the only bike rack available and it is located adjacent to the employee entrance. Probably won't get him anything but worth a try. He sent HR a memo and here are some of the suggestions he made. "1) Install a bike rack outside the front entrance where there would be visibility to receptionist/security in the lobby. This would also be out of the way of non-employee foot traffic. 2) Provide a more secure bike rack, such as the bike lockers provided at train and light rail stations. 3) Secure inside bike parking. The area next to the stairwell, just inside that east entrance, appears ideal. All that would be needed would be to add rings attached to the wall to secure the bikes. 4) Add a security camera. I was surprised to learn that the area outside this entrance wasn't monitored by a security camera. Add fence and key card gates to the whole area including the employee picnic area. I've always thought it odd that, on days when the cafeteria has a barbeque there, that non-employees can pass through on their way to Starbucks and Quiznos. Also, late at night, this looks like an area where someone could lurk making is dangerous for late shift workers." I maybe biased but I think they are very good suggestions in regards to security for everyone. But I am sure it will get filed in the circular file. Clare