I remember the time one of my neighbors was skinning an early bow kill in his backyard and multiple ticks were crawling off that hide. The wood ticks I don't much worry about, but those smaller deer ticks are the ones that will infect you with Lymes. An influx of deer ticks into the neighborhood was a terrible thought. I freeze my deer hides in a plastic garbage bag and that kills any ticks still on the hide. I've read that a guy should put a water with alcohol drip pan under a cooling deer to kill the ticks that drop off before they get in the yard.
Okay prevention is worth a pound of cure, but here is what you do right now. Call your doctor and have him write you a prescription for Doxycycline Mono 100MG caplets. If you get a deer tick embedded take two of those capsules to prevent being infected. They are a little pricey at $5.00 a pill, so you probably won't need a 30 pill bottle like I got, but it sure beats the debilitating effects of getting Lymes. Those pills are with me in my over night kit when ever I'm in deer country.
Now there is a new tick born decease even worse than Lymes, but that name escapes me right now. My boss had stage 3 Lymes and he spent the entire week of a sales meeting with his arm bent up over his head because his shoulder hurt so much. Two guys in the shop had time release syringes taped into their arms because they had contacted Lymes disease. Years ago I saw very few of those smaller deer ticks. Not so anymore. It gives a guy pause if he even wants to go out in the long grass during tick season. I went and took down a deer stand one July up north and had over 30 ticks on me when I got back. That isn't counting all the ones that I brushed off along the way. Ticks can be bad news.
Not for nothing, and I'm happy you're willing to share your stories...but it's Lyme disease not Lymes. And I'm quite surprised any MD would write a Rx for Doxy for you without a "need"...especially for 30 pills given the recommended dosage is as you described; 2 pills.
That said, ticks are indeed "bad news" as you say. And the ounce of prevention can be as simple as checking yourself over. If I'm not mistaken, NH is one of the states with the the highest rate of Lyme disease per capita and the little critters are out in force right now. I'm taking multiple ticks off the dogs every day and a check myself over if I've spent any amount of time outside or in the woods. But they're a fact of life now. I've gotten used to them as much as I dislike them.