What One Small Tick Can Do

It’s 7:30 on a warm Thursday evening and I’m running on River Road. The light from the dropping sun hits the water without glare. Across the river, the roofs of the Seaport shine. There are lots of us out here this evening, sharing this last good light of the day.

I am running slowly. If you saw me, you’d probably call this stride a shuffle. Almost everyone passes me, but what can I do? I smile and let them go.

This run is especially sweet because it’s my first in many days. It’s been a bit more than week since I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease.

In fact, I woke up a couple of weeks ago with a splitting headache and a fever of 100.3. I figured I had a virus and I’d be fine in a couple of days. After three days I was still in and out of bed, still napping every two hours like an infant, still weak and exhausted.

Saturday, Sunday….

Monday I called the doctor, explained that I had been camping and that I was now feeling poorly. He immediately ordered a Lyme test, which came back the next day rip-roaring positive.

I don’t remember a tick. I don’t have any sort of visible rash.

I’ve had this before, maybe five or six years ago when our youngest was a baby. That time my blood test came back negative, though I had the textbook bulls-eye rash on my arm. I started the doxycyclene and a couple of days later I was fine.

This time, my recovery is not so clean cut. I have good days and bad days. I have been on the antibiotic for almost two weeks, and while I do feel much better, I am by no means back to normal. I cannot, for instance, run every day. The most I can manage is a relatively short run every other day. I still require an afternoon nap. Thank goodness my husband is home for the summer building a deck, and kids, bigger now, do not require my undivided attention.

A woman who works at my dentist’s office tells me she has Lyme Disease as well as another tick-borne disease called Babesiosis. She got both from the same tick. From what she tells me, though, she was much sicker than I was. Her fevers were higher and she was even weaker.

But still. It makes a person wonder. What else could I have picked up from my own little invader? Is there something else inside my blood, swimming around immune from doxycyclene? Is it worth another visit to the doctor?

It’s crazy what these little bugs can do to you. I have had to cancel a trip to the White Mountains, a long run in Massachusetts and possibly an 18-mile trail race next weekend in the Catskills.

But there is an upside. These long and logy days have slowed down time. Toward the end of the home school year, back in April and May, it felt like the weeks were zipping past me at warp speed. But now everything is slow. I have time to do all the stuff I never have time for, because I’m not running around like a crazy person. My body simply won’t let me.

So I am running slowly. Sometimes I even stop to walk. But the evening is lovely, and everyone passing me is so nice. I’m just very happy to be part of it.

For more information on the latest from the medical world on Lyme disease, read Christine Woodside's article .