Ticked off
I want to take this post to talk about how evasive this disease is and how so little is known by health practitioners regarding it. When you hear the name Lyme disease you think bulls eye rash right? Did you know that only roughly 30% of people even get the rash and fewer than 50% even recall a rash? I never got one. Case and point. In fact, I never even saw a tick on me the first time I believe I got infected. Yes, I said the first time. I was reinfected four years ago, and that's what tipped the scales. It all goes back to a camping trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the 90's. My best friend Sharon and I did a backcountry camping trip to one of my favorite places on earth- Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We hiked in several miles to our campsite and stayed for about a week. It was an amazing girlie "Thelma and Louise" experience.
On our way back I started to get a fever and got very sick. Like sick sick. I rode it out. Weeks following that I started to get cold sores. I had never gotten one in my life. I blew it off. Months following that I had horrible insomnia issues and night sweats, and then came debilitating back and neck pain issues. Still, I blew it off. See a pattern here? I just keep brushing away these random symptoms and shook them off as facts of life. I didn't listen to my body. I was also a lot younger and dealing with family issues with my mother. Down right survival, I suppose with zero time for myself. But if I had known what to look for I might not be where I am now. Years and years passed. I would get occasional bouts of vertigo, and I also had a bit of hearing loss in one ear. Well, I am in a rock band so what could I expect right? I shook the back pain off and the tingling in my legs. I figured it ran in the family. I guess it's genetics! I'll just see a chiropractor and keep things in check. And so on and so on. Flash forward. Maybe six years ago I get a weird patchy rash on my body one summer. Kind of splotchy, didn't hurt, didn't itch, I saw the dermatologist, and she dismisses it as a virus and sends me off with a steroid cream (Bartonella anyone?) and here I am still bumping along. Christian and I meet, and we are now in a relationship. We are fresh out of long term breakups... stress! Start up a rock band... stress! Partying like rock stars... stress! I start working in the film industry shooting twelve hours days in dilapidated buildings... stress, mold! Travel overseas to Italy... stress and partying! And just before our trip to Italy Christian and I are up north and hiking in a tick endemic area, and I find a tick on my leg. Naturally, I freak out, hit it off my leg (wrong) and then proceed to DISMISS IT BECAUSE IT WASN'T ATTACHED FOR 24 HRS AND I DIDN'T HAVE BULLS EYE RASH! And I heard you can't get Lyme disease unless it's attached for 24 hours according to the CDC guidelines. BULLSHIT!!!!!!! OK so, I'm back from Italy, and I get a horrible sinus like infection and start losing hearing in one ear. I also am having some other weird random things happening like facial twitching and tingling, heart palpitations, sternum chest pain, burning scalp sensations. I start googling these things together and what keeps coming up but Lyme Disease! So I made a doctors appointment to get a Z-pack or something and have him run an Elisa test to see what the "F" is up. The rest is history. It came back positive, and my world changed.