When Did It All Begin?

When did it begin, my Lyme Disease?

I will never know when I was exposed or if I have been repeatedly infected, but I've certainly had ample opportunity. As a child, I spent five summers from the ages of 5 and 10, camping for entire summers while my father worked on his Master's at Central Michigan University's Biological Station on Beaver Island. Covered from head to toe with black fly, no-see-um and mosquito bites, it was a fabulous childhood and a pivotal influence on my adult life.

Our family spent the summer of 1976 camping while my parents cleared land and built their home in a wooded lot adjacent to a field frequented by deer. I loved to walk with my dog and ride my pony through those fields while growing up.

The run-in with ticks on a hike in the Porcupine Mountains?

During the fall of 1983 at Michigan Technological University, I spent a night in the woods with fellow classmates as we helped with an off-road rally, the Press on Regardless. I awoke days later, running a fever and covered from head to toe with tiny spots. The campus physician was puzzled by my illness. My son, born a year and a half later was 9 1/2 weeks premature.

Add a another red flag to the summer of 1989. I was taking field classes at the University of Michigan Biological Station. A chipmunk was a continual visitor to our dorm room. Did it carry a tick into our room?

During that summer, our class of 15 students and three instructors headed to Sugar Island for an overnight field trip. The group stayed in one cabin and some of us opted to sleep overnight under the stars, myself included. I still remember the beautiful stars and my giggles as my sleeping bag kept sliding toward the lake shore. When our class was preparing to return to the Station, I became violently ill with what at the time I thought were flu or food poisoning symptoms. However, I was the only one who became ill. I now know that a summer "flu", especially if no one else becomes ill, is a very red flag.

Within a few years, I could hardly walk due to arthritis in my right knee, I had daily sore throats, frequent respiratory and UTI infections and lost my voice at the slightest cold. A walk-in collision with a school bus mirror resulted in post-concussion syndrome, two weeks of missed work and months of short-term memory loss. I was bothered for many months, nearly a year, when an itchy sore on the back of neck in my hairline refused to heal. Students would remind me to eat protein when I would become weak and pale. Ten summers were spent at the University of Michigan Biological Station in northern Michigan.

Our current home backs up to a beautiful field. Deer frequent our backyard.
I am a biologist and a nature photographer. Much of my life has been spent surrounded by nature. It is a part of who I am and what I love. My husband sides with the MTU theory. The truth is that we can only be sure of one thing. I've had it for a long time.