Our journey here....

We believe our journey into lymeland started way back in 2002.  We moved from a very small town in Nebraska where there were tics but not in abundance to a small town in West Tennessee where tics were everywhere!  There is a small chance that my family was exposed in either Nebraska or Colorado but that answer only our Heavenly Father knows.  We do know that the spring and summer of 2003 tics were in abundance and a daily part of our life.  We did not worry about this little creature.  We just figured this was a new part of our life in the South.  Tics..everyday on one or more of us.

Let me back up a bit and share who we are.  We are a conservative, redeemed, home school family of at that time 6 children...1 son and 5 daughters.  (we now have a total of 7 children)  We were home which was on a small piece of land that was nothing but forest all the time.  My rugged, outdoor family spent lots of time tending to our dairy goat herd and exploring our new surroundings.  Tics were an everyday  occurrence.  We would just pull them off and go on.

In July of that year my oldest daughter, Samantha, became gravely ill.  She had all the symptoms of spinal meningitis.   She had a lumbar puncture only to determine it was not bacterial meningitis.  They ruled it viral meningitis.  She was in the hospital for 3 days.  We went home only to find our next oldest daughter, Hannah, had the same symptoms.  So off to the hospital we went.  Because she had the same symptoms as her older sister they did not do the lumbar puncture.  She was ruled viral meningitis.  Although they swore to me that it was not contagious.  This was just a fluke!  Three days later we went home only to find yet another daughter, Rachel, sick with the same thing.  Off we went to the hospital.  They were confused but not so much as to make them look for why 3 girls from the same family all caught some viral thing that settled in their brain!  Back then we did not have high speed Internet and the computer was not as big in our lives as it is now.  We had no reason not to trust the doctors.  We never, that I can remember, have a bulls eye rash or any other lyme symptoms at that time that I was aware of. We were unaware that meningitis is just as big of a symptom as the rash.  Shortly after that whole meningitis thing though my oldest daughter, Samantha, started to have pains in her body and head aches.  We just treated her with Tylenol.  I was not big into doing the dr. thing.  She did, though, see a Chiropractor and our family physician who thought it was just a hormonal thing.

Soon after this we moved to Middle Tennessee.  And soon after that move my next daughter, Hannah, also started having back problems and pain.  Then Rachel....the last one to get the meningitis.  All the girls, with the onset of their monthly cycle seemed to get pain throughout their whole body all the time.  Sometimes unbearable.  It wasnt' until about 3-4 years ago when we had moved to Eastern Tennessee that lyme was on my radar.

My second oldest daughter, Hannah, was tired all the time, cold and in pain.  You could not even touch her skin with out major pain.  She also had a bout with another spinal meningitis thing.  She had all the symptoms but did not test positive.  And her labs were "normal" so they accused her of having mental stress!  That was a horrible ER experience!  Soon after that I had taken her to a family dr who agreed to have her tested for lyme.   I believe it was the ELISA.  She was negative.  Which I now know is not unusual but at the time I figured it was not lyme and that it had to be something else.  Hannah, now had all the symptoms of fibromyalgia at age 14!  We just kept on living.  She is now 18 and still living with pain.

Now we are really getting to where we were aware of being in lymeland!  Now we are in June of this year.  Rachel, now 13 is having pain all over her body, head aches that are so bad she has to be in her dark room for hours, and she is exhausted most of the time....sleeping and taking naps all the time!  A dear friend has a 14 year old daughter who is also sick with lyme.  She shares the documentary "Under Our Skin".  I am amazed at what I see.  Summer is coming on strong...it is hot and August in Tennessee.  Rachel comes down with stomach flu.  It is a Thursday morning.  By that afternoon she has all the symptoms of spinal meningitis...again!  We take her to our local ER.  She is in so much pain.  Rachel has a very high pain tolerance so when she says she hurts you know it!  She needed 8 shots of morphine just to keep her bearable! They transported her by ambulance to Children's hospital.  They did a spinal only to determine that she did not have viral meningitis.  (does it seem like we have been here and done that?!)  They decided at 3 am to send my daughter home w/out so much as a pain pill.  She needed more morphine just to leave the hospital.  Nobody had a check in their brains that this was not a good thing.  I was too tired and numb to think.  Friday she was no better but because this was just supposed to be a virus, we are riding this out!  Saturday she is still no better.  So off to our local ER again.  This time they admit her.  By now I am asking her to be checked for tic born illnesses.  The dr. looked at me and said, "we are not looking for zebras here."  What the heck?!  I am tired but come on here.  He then looks at my hubby ( who must be the sane one because he did not ask about tic illnesses!) and stated "in Texas we have an old saying...if you hear hoof beats you think horses not zebras...Your  daughter obviously has a virus we will exhaust all else before we look at lyme."  My jaw was on the ground.  I could not talk.  The next day Rachel is still in the hospital.  She is puking like crazy and still in a HUGE amount of pain in her head and spine.  This "dr." now takes her off of all IV and pain meds and orders her to eat real food!  I told the nurse if all we are doing is watching her throw up I can do this at home.  Could we contact the "dr." and get us out of here?  So away we went, back home! 

The next day she is still extremely sick.  As a last ditch effort I go to our Nurse Practitioner who I really like.  She is a kindly grandmotherly figure who cares for her patients.  She comes in and sees how sick Rachel is.  Rachel is laying on their hard table throwing up into their trash can.  I explain what has happened.  I cry.  I beg for her to please, please test her for lyme.  She agreed.  I asked for them not to do the ELISA but to do a Western Blot.  She could not do it.  She had to follow protocol.  3 days later she calls...Rach is VERY positive on the  ELISA test.  She starts her on Amoxicillian for 2 weeks w/ a follow up with maybe 2 more weeks.  This was the day I new we were in a strange new land...a land that does not make any logical sense....lymeland!