Last night, at 6:00 Kim Smith posted an important blog post entitled, “Rare Tickborne Diseases Arrive on Cape Ann.” I read it right away and, when doing so, realized that I never shared our experience with Lyme disease this summer….which I had intended to do.
Kim’s post is incredibly informative and important as, in my experience, Lyme disease and other tick borne illnesses are either misdiagnosed or left undiagnosed because, in the absence of seeing a tick or discovering a bite, the person determines they are simply run down or sick with a cold or flu. Kim’s experiences give proof to that as well.
Read Kim’s entire post about her experiences HERE
Back in July, Thatcher woke up in the middle of the night on a Tuesday evening complaining about knee pain. He had no other symptoms and told me that he had knocked it on the side of the boat while out sailing. Just a few minutes later was sound asleep again, so I didn’t give it much thought.
The very next evening, he woke up in pain again. Even though he was on the brink of tears, which is mostly uncharacteristic of him, he still demonstrated no other symptoms, so I naively figured it was due to the fact that he had gone paddle boarding for several hours (against the current in Jones Creek and the Annisquam River) and then gone to a 2-hour hockey practice. The next morning he was totally fine.
Later that day, at Finn’s hockey practice, a friend looked at Thatch and asked, “Why are you limping?” Thatcher answered, “I don’t know, my knee just kind of hurts.” It was at that point that my mind began to race a bit but, seeing that I was getting worried, he assured me that it “wasn’t bad.” He was in perfect spirits and, otherwise, a pillar of health. That evening he slept soundly.
Friday morning, even though he hadn’t complained of any pain during the night, Thatcher’s knee looked a little swollen. He had no fever and when pressed to think extra hard on the matter, he couldn’t remember any significant injury to it. As I replayed our week in my mind, he had indeed paddle boarded, skated, gone on long bike rides, sailed in his little opti, jumped off the Annisquam Bridge, played street hockey, taken the dogs for walks, and more. During any one of those activities, he could have slightly twisted it or banged it enough to cause swelling. I wrestled with whether or not to go right to the doctor. I considered the conversation we would have, the lack of all other symptoms, and the amount of physical activity Thatch had participated in, and figured there wasn’t much the doctor could/would do. I figured we’d watch it and make sure no fever arose. The day progressed without much incident, but suddenly, almost out of nowhere, Thatcher’s knee was huge.
I called the doctor and they asked if there was a fever. No, there wasn’t. They asked if there were other symptoms, there weren’t. They asked if it was hot to the touch….not at all. The doctor’s office was closing so we made an appointment for 8:00 a.m. the next day. They told me that if his knee began to feel hot or if Thatcher presented with a fever we should immediately go to the ER. Neither of those things happened.
The next morning, however, Thatcher’s knee looked like this!
To avoid making an already incredibly long story longer….I’ll cut to the chase. The doctor asked lots of questions….and they took lots of blood. They sent us to the ER for x-rays to rule out drama or injury. The x-rays showed no injury….which Thatch was thrilled about because, being young and naive to the other possibilities, he was relieved that he could still play hockey. I, while not necessarily wanting it to be a bad injury, was more concerned with what the blood work would show. A long three days went by until, finally, on Tuesday morning the doctor called back with the results. Lyme disease.
By then, with lots of ice, wrapping, and resting (except for a trip to a Red Sox game) the swelling had gone down some. Thatcher immediately began Doxycycline, and with the exception of extreme sensitivity to the sun, a pretty bad sunburn, and a really wonky issue with his fingernails and toenails growing super thin, turning white, and falling off (yes, yuck) he was on the mend.
Moral of the story is this…. NO tick was found, no bullseye or rash was ever seen, no fever ever presented, no other symptoms at all other than a sore knee that suddenly exploded into a massive swollen joint. While, in retrospect, it seems obvious that we should have gone to the doctor earlier, it was all too easy to assume that such an active kid had simply overdone it! I consider myself incredibly lucky that Thatcher’s knee blew up to the point that it could no longer be ignored! With zero other symptoms it was solely because of the enormity of his knee that we knew it had to be “something”…otherwise we probably would have just continued with life as normal. If it had been left untreated, things could have become much, much worse.
My little public service message to you remember that sometimes (often) you won’t even know you were bitten….but, in this neck of the woods, don’t allow yourself to not be tested.
Thatch did a four week regimen of the Doxy and is now totally fine….his unfortunate, crazy sunburn healed and his fingernails and toenails are almost back to normal.
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