Putting it mildly, it’s a very bad connection.

One night in the summer of 1976 or 1977, just when Lyme Disease was coming to the forefront of the news, I was hanging out with friends at a local park near my house. We were standing back a ways from Hall’s Pond in an unkempt area of tall un-mowed grass interspersed with weeds, dirt & randoms sticks fallen off nearby trees. I felt something bite me near the groin area. I turned away from my friends & reached up under my shorts. Sure enough there was a critter in there. We’re not talking a baby bug. No no. This was the Gigantor (look it up – famous kids’ cartoon from the 60s that I loved very much) of insects. (I didn’t yet know it was a tick. I didn’t know ticks range in size & can be as small as a poppy seed. Mine was huge in comparison, more like a popcorn kernel.)

I put Gigantor in a napkin I had with me, as I was enjoying a super-delicious vanilla Carvel cone with colored sprinkles at the time. I didn’t know ticks have to be removed in a particular way. And of course I didn’t even know it was a tick. I just grabbed it to stop it biting me. When I got home I put Gigantor in a baggie. The next morning I went into the bathroom & noticed I had a big red bullseye on my inner upper thigh. The bug & I went right to the doctor. The medical school graduate with diplomas & other framed accolades hanging on the wall behind him listened to me explain what had happened & how I captured my prisoner.

“Is this a tick?” I asked.

He glanced at the baggie. “Looks like an engorged adult tick, yes.”

“Engorged on my blood?”

“I presume so.”

“Well what if it has Lyme like on the news?” I wonder warily.

His response went something like this: “Stop listening to sensational news stories & throw that thing away.”

“Shouldn’t it be examined & tested?” I said, perplexed by his attitude.

“No,” he said.

“Why?” I was totally nonplussed.

“It’s not necessary,” said the highly educated close-minded know-it-all.

“What about the bullseye on my leg?” How was he gonna get out of that one? He had looked at my leg & seen it with his own eyes.

“You got a bug bite & your skin became red from the irritation. That’s the end of the story,” said the guy with MD after his name.

“But it’s a bullseye & it’s from a tick!”

Now he was irked. He let go a long of exhalation of displeasure into the air “That doesn’t mean a damn thing!” exclaimed the wise MD, just like so many other supposedly wise MDs who had so oft said such words to me over the years.

“Can’t you just send this bug to some lab & get it tested? Just to make sure it doesn’t have Lyme?” I persisted.

He picked up the baggie with my bug in it & threw it right in the garbage. If that happened today he would have joined the bug in the garbage, as I would have put him in there myself – head first. (I was very meek in those days. Don’t mess with me now.)

“We don’t have Lyme Disease on Long Island,” he decreed from on high.

CLOSED-MINDED DOCTORS KEEP DOORS TO RECOVERY CLOSED

This uncongenial anti-Marcus Welby continued to speak down to me, call me an alarmist, imply I was a lunatic for bringing a tick into his office. It was awful. I felt like a fool. To my shame I didn’t have the guts to go get my engorged adult tick out of his garbage to bring to some other doctor who might have heeded my request, or at least have been curious. If I had, perhaps I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in today. I guess the esteemed genius won the battle that day because I chose to be a coward.

Maybe the tick that bit me wasn’t infected, but maybe it was. Wouldn’t the wiser course have been to to scientifically determine the medical facts rather than dismiss the idea of Lyme merely because it was new? The physician in question preferred to spend ten minutes humiliating a young college girl who had come to his office for help. His only counsel was to put calamine lotion on the bullseye. Actually, the calamine helped soothe the area – but it sure wasn’t a cure for Lyme Disease.

Soon after that I developed Bell’s Palsy. I had no idea that could be a symptom of Lyme. Decades later we now know about the co-infections of Lyme Disease & the havoc they wreak on the human body. You’ll find a great deal of pertinent information on Dr. Tania Dempsey’s website. This article is a must read: Lyme Disease & Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.