It’s that time of year for senior photos, and that tends to mean a few things.

First, of course, it means you’ll find me, plus a high school senior, my lighting assistant and maybe a mom or dad or sibling or two tromping out into high grass to find some epic photo locations.

But probably more importantly, you’re going to hear me saying some version of the same thing over and over and over again.

“I’ve got bug spray for the ticks if you need it.”

“Are you sure you don’t need any bug spray for the ticks?”

“It smells awful, but it really keeps the ticks away.”

“After we’re done, please make sure you tick check.”

“When you get home tonight, you’re going to want to tick check.”

“Please, tick check.”

Annoying? A bit too mom like for your tastes?

I’ll take them both — my teenager’s said worse.

But let me share a quote from Sullivan County Public Health Nursing Director Nancy McGraw from August of last year.

“In all of 2019, Sullivan County had 653 cases of Lyme and 32 cases of anaplasmosis. In the first half of 2021, there have already been 322 cases of Lyme and 32 cases of anaplasmosis,” McGraw said in a release from the county.

Lyme you’re likely familiar with by now as that tick-borne virus that can proceed from a nasty rash to attacking your joints and nervous system in no time if you ignore it. Anaplasmosis is less common — and less known — but no less scary in how it will wreak havoc on the body. And as McGraw pointed out in that same press release last summer, it doesn’t even bother to warn you with the bullseye rash most of us associate with tick bites and Lyme disease.

As if that’s not all reason enough for me to sound like a broken record every time I step into a field of high grasses with another human being — or another human being’s minor child — the numbers tell a fairly unsettling tale.

We went from 38 cases of Lyme per 100,000 people in 2017 here in Sullivan County to nearly double that in 2018 — 61 cases per 100,000 people. By 2019, we’d jumped to 114 cases per 100,000, per New York State Health Department data.

And those numbers are unlikely to drop any time soon.

So might I advise some bug spray and a tick check?

It might be annoying. It may make you feel like you’re being mothered.

Then again, it could save your health.