On Monday, Lisa woke up with a headache. She took Ibuprofen. By Tuesday, the headache was still there. It was accompanied with extreme fatigue and flu like symptoms. She took Dayquil. Wrote it off as sinus issues. On Wednesday, she started taking an antibiotic that was leftover from her ear infection earlier this year. More Ibuprofen. When she arrived home from work a little early, she napped for a couple of hours.
I was worried. Really, really worried. I always fear the worst. In this case, it was a brain aneurysm or tumor. She had a tender spot on the back of her head. The headache was persistent. Although it had eased slightly after taking the antibiotic, it wouldn't go away.
When I got up this morning, I sent her an email asking if she was feeling better. Nope. That was it. I put my foot down and instructed her to make an appointment with her doctor. She did.
Lisa was diagnosed with and is being treated for Lyme.
I exhaled and gasped at the same time. I was relieved it wasn't anything life threatening, but hearing she had Lyme threw me for a loop. I was shocked. Concerned. I spent the next couple of hours researching and reading up on Lyme Disease.
How did this even happen?
We are diligent to the point of being obsessive about tick preventative. All of our kids are on Revolution. It's a liquid we put on the back of their necks once a month for flea, tick, heartworm and mite preventative. We've never had a problem with fleas or ticks or mites. In the past 5 years, we've only spotted 2 ticks in the house.
Although I'm fully aware that ticks are tiny and can find their way into our home and onto our clothing and skin easily, there were a few things I didn't know.
Lisa has been doing a lot of yard this year for one of our neighbor friend who isn't able to do it herself. Maybe that was the source. Maybe it wasn't. Regardless, the yard has several breeding grounds for ticks making it a high risk area.
I always checked Lisa for ticks, before she showered, after she did any type of yard work. The parts neither one of us gave much thought to were areas with hair. We didn't think to. Those are the areas that should have been checked closely. Ticks latch onto hair. They're tiny. That's where they hide. And bite. And linger.
She also didn't have the famous bulls eye rash. Today we learned the bulls eye rash doesn't always appear.
I learned that September is another peak season for ticks. To make things worse, according to Connecticut Health I-Team, over 95% of the black legged deer ticks survived the winter.
As quoted in their 'Six Things To Know About Ticks and Lyme Disease' article, "Connecticut is definitely a highly endemic area. In 2015, more than 2,500 Lyme disease cases were reported statewide, with infection rates the highest in Windham, New London and Middlesex counties. Nationally, 96 percent of Lyme cases occur in just 14 states, including Connecticut."
We live in Windham county.
Lisa was prescribed a strong regimen of medications that she will be on for 3 weeks. Thankfully, her long Labor Day weekend begins tomorrow afternoon.
I have cancelled what little plans we had over the long weekend. We wanted to have our neighbor friends over for a cookout and maybe hit some yard sales and flea markets over the weekend. Yard sale season is ending soon. The summer season is almost over.
I put my foot down. Puffed out my chest. I didn't budge. She pouted. Resisted. I stood firm. Finally, she exhaled, sat down and pouted more.
"Fine, but you know I'm not a good patient."
Tomorrow, I'll spend the day doing all of the housework and preparing healthy snacks and dinners for the days ahead. One of the medications she's on has a steroid in it. Lisa was on a steroid medication earlier this year. It made her a bit grumpy and super hungry. She was a bottomless pit.
This sucks. Ticks suck. However, we'll get through it.
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