What? A tick lived in my ear! Part one of my Lyme Disease Story…
Looking back at my downward health journey, it started over 20 years ago. I was twelve years old. I remember that day coming home from swimming, hanging with friends in the backyard, and jumping on the trampoline. This was back when parents kicked the kids outside all day to play. I’m not sure exactly how that tiny little bug found me, but he did. My mom and I think he just hopped a ride into my hair and, while I slept, crawled right down into my warm ear canal. Yes, you read that right! Even still, l get a little PTSD talking about it as it makes my skin crawl!
Seeing I had been swimming so recently, I thought I had trapped water stuck in my ear. I kept trying to shake it out by jumping on one leg, complaining to my mom that I couldn't get that water out. I was so young I didn’t even think it could have been a bug. I mean, who believes that would actually happen to them? Yet, the more days ( yes, I said days, more like a week…) that went by, I noticed Black debris on my q tip as I tried to get the “water” out. That bugger was feasting on me, then digesting in my ear! Once I showed my mom the q tips, she took me straight to The Doctor.
Oh, that day I’ll forever remember, and not in a good way. As the doctor called in all her colleagues to look in my ear, I became a sideshow. They came in one by one, horrified by the engorged tick. Though I can assure you no one was more horrified than me!
The doctor tried to flush it out but had no success. He was embedded. So next stop was to the ear surgeon, where I had wide awake surgery as they took long tweezers and cut the tick out of my ear canal. So painful! I remember my mom felt so bad that she promised me a new bike seeing me in that kind of pain. As we didn't have much extra money then, I went easy on her and settled for a cookie dough blizzard instead. Interesting how we remember even small details of a traumatic day, isn't it?
The doctor then tested the tick for one strain of Lyme Bacteria, and when it came back negative, all was thought to be well. I was placed on a precautionary six weeks of antibiotics just in case ( which is surprising in the Lyme world I got any!). This was the nineties, so Lyme testing was worse than even today. Upon doing research, I found there are now five subspecies of Borrelia Burgdorferi with over 100 strains in the United States. So it’s no surprise they missed the Lyme-only testing for one measly strain. My one Lyme doctor said that for how long that bug lived in my ear, six weeks of treatment was not sufficient. I was never tested for Lyme nor checked on after that. I went on for many years with some health issues, but we never returned to when that bug lived in my ear until 2019.
So what were those years like after the tick? I began struggling in school. My attention span was small, and I suspected I had ADD-like some of my other classmates. I had chronic sore throats where the doctor would say she has another virus at each doctor’s visit. In my junior year of high school, I had a scary case of mononucleosis that my spleen enlarged so big I was almost hospitalized. That put me off school for six weeks and off the Dive team. Around that same time, I also began to have unexplained stomach aches, and though I was already a worrier, that got magnified, and I would fear going to school at times. I still don't know how I managed to graduate with B’s and C’s through all the struggles at school. It’s funny; I’ll still have nightmares that I didn't graduate high school; does anyone else have those?
Beauty School became my answer for a career option when I couldn’t hack college. It had to be hands-on learning, and I did well and earned my cosmetology license. At that same time, I met Blake, my husband. We were married young at 21 years old.
As for my health in early marriage, I still had fatigue, stomach issues, anxiety, and very bad PMDD. But, doctors’ answers to that were antidepressants and birth control which made me feel worse. I couldn’t do either. I got to where I learned to just power through.
In our early years of marriage, we struggled to make ends meet. I didn’t know if bills would get paid each month. I have to give credit to The Lord. He was faithful in always supplying; we didn’t have much, but it was a time I look back fondly on as he grew us closer to him, and we got to see his tiny miracles for our family. But that doesn’t mean I handled the financial stress well. I wish I could say I did, but I didn’t. Because of that, I mysteriously got ill, and it put me in bed for a few months. It was determined I had Epstein Barr. I was given antibiotics and then made improvements to function again. Was that the Lyme then? Maybe…
Blake eventually got an excellent job, and the stress got better. My health improved. We then welcomed our first daughter. I did pretty well with her pregnancy. I still battled fatigue, hormone, and stomach problems. But managed them with diet and supplements pretty well. I worked under a Naturopath that was a lot of help.
After a couple of years, we went on to try and get pregnant with our second child. It wasn’t as easy the second time around. After multiple miscarriages’ we got genetic testing done and determined I had a double MTHFR mutation. It turned out I also had harmful folate levels. I was deficient. We did a DNC to clean out any damage from my previous IUD and miscarriages. I also then took folate and baby aspirin. I was able to get pregnant and have my second daughter. The devastation from the losses was very hard on me and my body. It was an uncomfortable pregnancy, and I worried until she was in my arms.
During the miscarriages, I quit my job to alleviate the stress of working and doing everything at home. Blake’s lineman job was busy, and there was too much put on my shoulders. The quitting helped immensely; I’m blessed to stay home.
The next few years have their own long story, so I had to break it into parts.
Continued in next post…
References:
https://www.nihadc.com/health-programs/lyme-disease.html
