I guess not every case involves the big red bullseye loudly declaring “check yourself out! You’re sick!” Nor does every case involve actually finding a tick on you.
It most likely started in May, but the noticeable symptoms started in August. I was drowsy. I wasn’t eating right. And the pain. God the pain was horrible. It started in my left thumb, and crept slowly up the length of my arm for the whole month.
My mother made a million and one excuses. You just started drumming. You’re on the computer too much. I had to beg to be checked out.
At the hospital, a tall Jamaican woman was taking my blood. She leaned down, and asked which arm hurt. She proceeded to try to find a vein in the opposite arm. After that search was fruitless, she asked again which arm hurt, and apologized for misunderstanding me. She was able to find a vein in my left arm, and so I went home with two matching lumps of cotton on my elbows and anxiety about the test results.
They had tested for Lyme Disease on the off chance it might be that. I’m from a tick infested area, it was likely. And likely it was, because we got the call saying I have Lyme Disease and that I had to go pick up my prescription of antibiotics.
The first ones were a nightmare. Every time I took them, I threw up. Didn’t matter if I ate before them or not. I was rushing to a trash barrel within the hour. We finally switched meds when I threw up in front of my entire marching band, before quietly asking the director if I could please go see the nurse.
And the sleeping. I was always falling asleep. I slept through alarms and missed so much school. I got a doctor’s note excusing me and my absentness, but I was still missing out on important things. I wasn’t prepared for football games, so I struggled whenever I went out onto the field with my drum.
I was on the new medicine, and things seemed to get a little better. I wasn’t throwing up, and I was able to slowly stop the excessive sleeping. But I was in so much pain. The pain had moved from my arm to my knees, where it’s persisted even as I write this.
I ended up going to the Floating Hospital for Children in Boston to see their Infectious Diseases department. They were really confused. They didn’t understand why the symptoms were persisting so much. I was like a test subject and they were testing to see what Lyme Disease did.
They took more blood. This time it was an older, Eastern European woman who took my blood. She tapped my arm and shook her head. “I’m afraid to say, but you have bad veins,” she informed me. My veins are small and hard to locate, as the first blood-taker had noticed. She asked me a lot about my family. I explained how my mom worked in mortgaging and my dad was unemployed as she prepped the needle. Soon, she was pressing it into my arm.
“Aha! First try, good for me!” she had declared as the blood came rushing down the tube. I figured I was getting used to having blood taken.
They set me on another course of antibiotics, but after that I had no help. I was still fatigued, I was still in pain. This was around December.
I got through the school year, but taking stairs scared me. It hurt like hell to try to climb them. And when I got to college, I had to walk so much more. My mom bought me a cane, and that really gave me my mobility back. I stopped being afraid to take the elevator one flight, since I really could not do most stairs anymore.
Lyme Disease took away my senior year. It took away my mobility, but I fought to get it back. No one expects Lyme do have such damaging consequences. So, whenever you go out into the woods wear long sleeves and tuck your pants into your boots. Check your scalp and other hairy areas for any hidden ticks. And be careful!