That pesky tick

Richelle's test results for Lyme's disease came back negative.

I wasn't satisfied because I know of two people who tested negative and by the time they finally did test positive after 20-30 years, their health had been permanently broken.  Both are ladies (is that a common factor?); one in the mid-west and confined to a wheelchair due to paralysis (yikes!) and the other here on the west coast with permanent damage to internal organs (don't know which ones).  One of my aunts (another woman...) has had ill health for about 25 years and I understand she was diagnosed with Lyme's but I'm not certain if she's actually tested positive or if they've just come to that conclusion.

So.

I asked the nurse who gave me the results if the doctor would be willing to write a full prescription even with a negative result and she promised to memo the request to him.  Then I talked with two of my sisters who are in the medical field and they both strongly encouraged me to go with my instincts.

I was all geared up for a (polite) fight for the antibiotics armed with information from my sisters...and the nurse called the next day to tell me the prescription had been called in to the pharmacy and I could pick it up at my convenience.

I'd been gearing myself up from the beginning;  Would he order a blood test or will I have to fight for it?  If it came back negative would he write the prescription or would I have to fight for it?  For whatever reason, the most I had to do was politely ask if the doctor would be amenable to treating Richelle as if the tests had come back positive.

Now she's taking 100mg of doxycycline twice a day for twenty-one days. One of my sisters (a nurse practitioner) is also getting me an herbal preparation that, in her estimation, gets what the antibiotic doesn't.

She feels normal but had some paralysis in her ankle Wednesday morning and her knee went numb during Bible study that evening.  SO glad she's on meds!  Damage done by that bacteria is irreversible.

Quite a saga.