The Josh Innes Show - Do I Have Lyme disease?

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

So, our friend Ross seems to bring some ticks into our home. For the most part, they die on him and it's not a big deal. But, I saw one on me yesterday and now I'm convinced I'm going to have Lyme disease and I'm going to die. Speaking of Ross, people unfairly judge him because he's black. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Yesterday we took Ross to this cool state park area, you know, where they've got like off-road type of trails. There's like a paved path. And then there's, you know, you'll wander off into the woods and shit like that. And it's kind of cool, you know, and and he likes to kind of be out nature. So we did that. And, you know, we bring him home yesterday and and I discover a tick on my leg.

Like it's like crawling on my leg. And I'm like, shit, what do I do? You know, and I was going to go grab it with like a napkin or something. But then it disappeared. I don't think it like burrowed into my skin or anything like that. Like I don't believe that I have, you know, like some sort of tick inside of me at this point.

I don't think that's how ticks work. Is that how ticks work? Like do ticks just burrow their full body into your body and then like you get Lyme disease and die? Like I don't fucking know. You know, I've never had Lyme disease and I've never really had a bunch of ticks on me before. But now, like Ross, unlike Luther, who very rarely had ticks, although he would get some on him on occasion like this dog.

Like, you can't see the fucking ticks like, you know, Luther had like more of a grayish type of hair. So if there was a black like a tick on him, you'd see the fucking tick and you'd be able to get it. I mean, this is black on black, which also before we get into the tick debate, or not even debate like a tick talk, I think that my dog gets judged differently because he's black. And by the way, that is not me being neurotic about it. That is just a dog facts. If you look up factual information about dog adoptions,

black dogs get adopted at a slower rate than other dogs, right? So when I'm walking with Ross, Ross is a very energetic dog when he walks. But when he sees another dog, and by the way, loves other dogs, never starts shit with them, I'm fairly certain he's more of the submissive dog, but he loves dogs. Like he wants to play with more of them. He wants more dogs, that's just kind of how he operates. So when you look at Ross, he slinks up to you, that like that's kind of

how he walks and approaches people. He's like a, he's inquisitive in the way he walks. He doesn't just walk up to you like all jolly and like doofus like, he walks up to you in kind of a slinky kind of like, hmm, I'm feeling you out kind of way. And I think people view that as him like being like a predator of some sort. So you mix in the fact that he's got this slinky approach about the way he comes up to people and other dogs on a leash and then he's black to top it all off. I think he gets an unfair judgment. So then people start holding their fucking dogs back and they're like,

Oh no, we don't want to mess with him. I'm like, he's the nicest dog on the planet. Why are you judging my dog, you dog racist sons of bitches, because he's black? And it's not me being neurotic. It's true. People judge black dogs differently and they adopt them at a slower rate. So like, I'll take Ross and like, I get it. Like, he looks kind of intimidating when he walks up. Not that he's like snarling or anything. He's just like

curious and he's kind of like the dog lived on the street. So you got to be kind of cautious before you just like give yourself to somebody or another dog. So you're a little suspicious of them. Then dogs judge him differently and I'm like, don't you dare judge my dog in that way, you sons of bitches. Anyway let's play a few commercials. So anyway last night this tick is on me and now I have no idea where that tick went. It fell off of me as I was going to try to get a

napkin to take it off because I know they say you're supposed to use tweezers and shit. I don't believe this tick was actually like burrowed into me. I don't think because like it fell off. So I don't think any of his little antennas and shit and his little legs are in me. But now what's happened is now I'm really paranoid about this everywhere because like we can't find tick like we can't see these ticks. So like this morning, uh, Jilly is like petting Ross and she feels another tick. So in this tick was already dead, which means he had already burrowed into Ross. Now Ross takes a medication for this kind of shit or like a preventative, so that's fine. But why do people not have tick preventative medications? Ticks can fuck a person up bad. So what happened

to like Avril? Avril got Lyme disease that one time and damn near died. And what about Darryl Hall of Darryl Hall and John Oates he got the fucking Lyme disease once too I am petrified of getting this shit man and I think part of it comes from the fact that I had encephalitis don't know if you guys knew and I have no idea how I got it no one has any clue I don't know how encephalitis is transmitted how people get it I have no clue but I had it and it was fucking scary and look I don't know for a fact that I almost died but I'm fairly certain I did so like I'm Paranoid about this kind of shit on the reg constantly scared shitless of getting something like that ever again

So anytime I see like ticks and shit, I get really weirded out. So then like last night I'm afraid I'm gonna get Lyme disease So I'm like scrubbing shit and I'm sweeping shit in the hopes that I don't get Lyme disease And I don't even think this tick was ever like burrowed into me So you're not gonna get Lyme disease from a tick walking on you and who even knows if this tick had Lyme disease That's the other thing like you look at these damn ticks Some of them carry disease some of them don't but like it's really fucked up and it's really weird and I don't want to get Lyme disease So now I'm petrified of this and then my dog makes sure to wander into all the places that you're most likely to get ticks

He like goes into bushes and trees and shit and I'm like, can you just stay on the goddamn sidewalk? You son of a bitch. I know it doesn't impact your life of a tick bites you but if it does I'm dead Do you want me to die? Is that what you want? Then you throw in the fact that I have no insurance because my insurance was costing me $800 a month. I don't even make $800 a month anymore. Your boy ain't making shit. So do you think like without insurance, you think I want to be in a situation where I'm stuck with like Lyme

disease and then I'm having to go to the hospital and owe a bunch of money. At that point, there ain't no point living because I'm going to be paying every single dime I've ever had back to hospitals and loans and everything else. Shit like that creeps me out. Like how have we not figured something out that like prevents people from getting Lyme disease? Like we focus on all this other shit. We got vaccines for this, vaccines for that, vaccines for this. And apparently right now is like the worst time ever that

the county, St. Louis County, is dealing with ticks. There are just ticks all over the place that we're dealing with. And I don't think it's unfair for me to be a little bit neurotic, a little bit of a hypochondriac about this scenario. I don't like this scenario right now. I don't like how I'm feeling about this right now. This is no good.

Now, I like, especially when you're sitting on the couch, and like that's the problem is our dog sits on everything. He's black so you can't see if he's got ticks on him. Our couch is like a dark gray color so it's not like it's a white couch where, oh, I see a black spot. Oh, it's a fucking tick. I'm sitting on the couch last night and there's a tick walking across my leg. I felt it. I'm freaked out by it. And now I've convinced myself that this god damn tick has given me Lyme

disease, although I don't think this tick has given me Lyme disease But now I have a convenient headache and I'm like is that a symptom? So now what I'm doing is I'm sitting around going to like WebMD and I'm like, what are the symptoms of Lyme disease? And it's like, oh, do you have a headache? I'm like fuck right? I got a goddamn headache and they're like well You might have Lyme disease and I'm like shit. I'd rather is can it be AIDS is it AIDS? Shit, you know what? I'm gonna do this to myself like a total fucking dipshit Lyme disease symptoms. Here we go Pain and the joints or muscles. I have pain in the joints and muscles all the time

I'm fat so I don't know I don't know if it's because I'm fat that I'm having pains in the joints and muscles or if it's the gout or whatever It's the Lyme disease Fatigue fever fever and malaise I always have a malaise I'm a walking malaise joint stiffness or swelling I have the gout is it gout or is it Lyme disease also a bullseye pattern rash or headache son of a bitch I don't think I have a bullseye pattern rash or headache. Son of a bitch. I don't think I have a bullseye pattern rash, but I have a headache. For the love of Christ, I have Lyme disease. It's scary though, isn't it?

It's just scary that shit that's out of your control can fuck you up in such a manner. Now I'm aware that cancer does that too. You don't know you have cancer, then one day you have fucking cancer and then you might die. I get that. It's not uncommon that things out of your control are the things that fuck you up. In fact, the majority of things that kill you are things that are out of your control, right?

But it's just freaky that like just a little tiny son of a bitch like that did that. And I still have no idea like how like how does one get encephalopo... I don't know why I'm going down this wormhole. How do you get encephalitis? Let's see. Most caused by viral infections but can be caused by bacteria, fungi, or parasites. Well, how? Some insect bites of encephalitis are spread through insect bites like ticks and mosquitos. Well, that could very well be the case. I was in fucking Houston at the time. Mosquitos are very possible. Ticks are very possible. I feel like I

would have seen a tick that would have caused that, but maybe not. I don't know where I would have gotten like where would I have gone in Houston, where I would have had like a tick back then. This is 2010. I got the fuck what I had been doing. I never went anywhere where there were ticks. I stayed in the city. Never went to like a park or anything like that. But maybe it was a mosquito bite the gum. I maybe got the wrong goddamn mosquito. I pissed off the wrong son of a bitch and that mosquito then turns on me and gives me goddamn encephalitis like a piece

of shit. That's probably what happened. Told all his little buddies about it too, like hey, I took out that fat one over there. But that's the kind of shit that freaks me out. I don't really live in a hypochondriac world, although I probably have generalized anxiety, which that is self-diagnosed, so who knows? I think the fact that I've self-diagnosed myself with generalized anxiety means that I probably have generalized anxiety. But I also think everybody has generalized anxiety,

because why wouldn't they have generalized anxiety? Especially in this era, everything freaks me out. Every word I say freaks me out. Everything I post freaks me out. Like, you're freaks me out, everything I post freaks me out. Like you're always wondering if you've said the right thing, the wrong thing, whatever, that's gonna get yourself canceled or whatever, you're gonna get sick or like,

oh, I'm no longer on Manjaro and now I feel fatter because I am fatter because I'm eating worse than I feel more sluggish and is it my sluggish because of this? Like I would love, going back to the previous discussion we had about like just getting outside of your head, I would love nothing more than just to be outside of my head. Like I have a dream.

My dream is to somehow escape to some faraway land that isn't America without the drama of America. I don't want to go to like Ireland or someplace like that, although they seem to get nice and hammered, they seem like decent folks. So I mean, it's like it'd be high on the list. Like, hey, I'm moving to Ireland or I'm moving to like some place where they speak English and get fucking tanked all the time. Sounds like my kind of place. But in reality, I think I'd rather go to like a like a beach place, you know, like go to the Bahamas or some shit or some island and throw my phone in the ocean and never see it again and and throw the internet away and just sit

there and live and be in the fucking moment and like go like get my own fish with like a fucking spear like spear a fucking fish in the water and then cook the fucking fish. No TV, no cable, no phones just like you would be almost impossible to not have an open mind at that point, right? Like you would have to be. It would have like, cause like when you have all these other options like cell phones and cable and sports and you're watching games and you're betting and you're stressing on shit,

like that still will keep you from living in the moment. I want the opportunity to just be, just to be. And to me, you'd have an opportunity to just be if you have no other distractions around you. Now, ultimately, I'd probably get bored with that. Let's be real. I'd like to, you know, watch some television. But like imagine a world where you don't have a cell phone and you just throw the fucker in the ocean. And like to me, that's the key distraction in your

life. Like we've always had TV and we've always and like we've had open brains watching TV before. You know, like you can live in the moment. Cell phones have taken us out of the moment and taken us into a different reality, a different realm. Throw the cell phone in the ocean and never deal with it again. Have a landline. Someone might call you on a landline down in the Bahamas. You spend all day on the beach and you just be like, I wonder if I could do that. Like those are

the things I think. Could I do that? Could I just live in a world where I can ever just be and not be stressed out or are we always, especially in this era, designed to be stressed out? Will we always be stressed out? Will we always be thinking of 20 different things that have us in a bad spot and are we always going to be worried about money and are we always going to be worried about the internet and we always be thinking of 20 different things that have us in a bad spot? And are we always going to be worried about money? And are we always going to be worried about the internet? And we always going to be worried?

Like, will that always be the case? Or will there be a way to escape that universe? I don't know. All I know is that I think I have Lyme disease now. More to come.