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.

Summer Loving Fun...

I was appalled that my last post was three months ago.  So much has happened this summer!  A new daughter-in-law, our first grand-baby, a family reunion, conventions, activities with Girl Scouts....

I posted a cryptic message on Facebook about Richelle, a tick bite, and Lyme disease that I thought I'd explain in more detail here.

Speaking of Girl Scout activities....

June 11-13th we went camping at a Boy Scout camp that our girls have re-named Camp Lotsa Ticks - in 48 hours, we pulled six ticks off our girls.  That Saturday afternoon, Richelle came to where us adults were sitting and plopped herself down on my knees.  The girls were so jumpy about ticks by that time (and one adult in particular) that I couldn't resist having a little fun.
I slowly pulled her shirt up her back, waiting for her to ask what I was doing, upon which I was going to answer,  "Searching for ticks, of course," and wait for her leap off my lap shrieking.  She didn't ask, so I kept lifting her shirt (modestly, of course!) until I came to her bra strap.  Still no response, so I lifted that (I was really wanting a reaction) and froze stock still.
There, embedded up to its shoulders in a circle of angry red flesh, was a tick already half engorged.  Visions of a trip to Urgent Care or the emergency room danced before my eyes.
My absolute stillness alerted two of the adults and they were beside me almost instantly.  Out came the well-used tweezers and the tick was "unscrewed".  All three of us checked that the head was attached to the body and it was carefully placed in the campfire.  I scrubbed the site with an alcohol prep pad and hoped for the best.
The strange thing was that Richelle hadn't felt the tick boring in.  Perhaps because it was on her back.

Over the next few weeks, I kept an eye on the site.  Other than it taking a while to go from angry red to pale pink, there wasn't anything unusual and I eventually forgot about it.

About six weeks ago, Richelle came out from her (hot) shower with a towel wrapped around her, walking away from me.  I saw the tick site was an angry red again.  I felt something like a little pustule at the site and it itched Richelle for me to touch it.  I decided to talk with a few nursing friends of mine before I spent time and money at the doctor.

Last Tuesday evening Richelle complained of a sore throat, post-nasal drip, and a general not-feel-good feeling.  I gave her half an anti-histamine and sent her to bed.  Next morning (I let her sleep in) she said that along with her sore throat and post-nasal drip, she had a headache, an upset stomach, felt feverish and generally unwell.  I encouraged her to take a shower and she said she didn't think her legs would hold her up long enough for that.  I thought she meant she felt weak, left her in bed, and did our normal Wednesday afternoon/evening activities in town.
Imagine my horror when I got home later that evening and realized she'd meant that her thigh muscles were partially paralyzed!  I had her wiggle her toes and move her feet but she was slow to move her knees in any direction I asked; up, back, out, or in while she was lying down (she said they didn't respond at all when she was in the sitting position).    So I knew it wasn't something spinal but for some reason, she'd lost at least 50% use of those muscles for about thirty hours.

(I'm giving all these details for those readers in the medical profession, not to scare the non-medical ones to death!)

When questioned intensely, she admitted to having paralysis in one leg or the other for the preceding two weeks but since it would occur in one leg or the other and last just a minute or two, she didn't say anything to me.
I had a chance the next evening for a nurse friend to look at it (thank you, Dawn) and she noticed discoloration and the beginnings of a welt around the site.  She also confirmed that 14 weeks wasn't abnormal for signs of Lyme's disease to show up.

So I took her in yesterday and they removed a plug of tissue at the bite site to get whatever we'd unknowingly left behind and they drew blood to send off for Lyme's disease testing.  Results should be in by the beginning of next week.

Children

I was visiting Nick and Jenn the other day and my heart warmed at the picture of Nick cuddling Little Bradlee.  Nick gazed at the little guy contemplatively, smoothed his duck-down-soft hair and observed, "Usually, when you bring something life-changing into your life, you spend time researching it and choosing your options before ordering your specifications; 'Let's see....we want brown hair...blue eyes...about eight pounds....'   With a baby, it doesn't work that way but we're sure happy with what we get!"

"But," Mike pointed out when I told him later, "you choose your specifications beforehand when you look for your spouse."  

Well, yes, I guess you do.  But I never saw '9lbs, 11oz' on Mike's manifest, nor did I see 'nearly bald for the first six months'.  But I agree with Nick - we're sure happy with what we get!

I got a few more pictures of Bradlee and this one of Nick but Jenn was not ready to be photographed and I didn't even ask.

Here he is taking a peek at the world.

Enough of the world.  Back to sleep again.

Baby Bradlee

Here's the latest addition to the Miller family corner.  Little Bradlee arrived Tuesday, July 20th at 9:22 pm.  He weighed in at 8 pounds even and measured out at 20 1/2 inches long.  He has a head full of dark hair and long fingers and toes.

While Jenn was on oxygen because of minor complications......

Nick was catching up on a bit of missed sleep.

Proud Daddy!

Happy Mama!

New Grandma

New grandpa

First bath

We've got the diaper on and we're content.

He's adorable and we love him to pieces!!

Cameron and Serena's Wedding

I've finally gotten some pics of the wedding.  Here's Richelle as one of the bridesmaids.  She, Serena's two sisters, and Serena's best friend (who happens to be male) were her attendants.  

Here are Cameron and the groomsmen.  His brother Nick is second to last and his cousin Chris is last.  The ring-bearer is Serena's nephew and the other young-un is the ring-bearer's brother.

Mr. and Mrs. Cameron Miller!

They were so kind to each other cutting the cake.

Richelle was wearing Melissa's fine pearl necklace so all the siblings were included in the ceremony.

Spring has....um....sprung?

May has been unseasonably cool for us this year but a few days ago, the weather was very spring-like.  The flowers were blooming....

...the goldfinches were feasting by the dozens.....

And then, after a day of Mary-Poppins-turn-the-umbrella-inside-out-and-the-patio-table-over winds, this rolls in.....

The rain made the flowers less than bright but were determined to be cheerful anyway.

We had driving rain like this off an on all day yesterday.  You can see the haze of rain splashing off the table.  The little iris buds are thankfully protected through the onslaught. 

Sunset.  But it didn't bring "sailor's delight" as the red sky promised.  Today was another day of torrential downpours interspersed with spells of....not dryness, really....more like....not raining.

It got up to 49 degrees today and the forecast for tonight is snow as low as 2,000ft.  I suppose if we lived in Prince Albert, Canada, this would be normal.  But we live in western Oregon and it's not normal.  Global warming?  I shake my head as I toss another log into the wood stove.

Language/Culture studies

Richelle wearing a Roman girl's tunic and belt.

We started a course of Latin language study back in September with other homeschooling families.  In name, Richelle was the student and I was there to audit the class.  In fact, we both learned Latin grammar, pronunciation, word derivatives, culture, and history.  Richelle didn't want to take the class at first but when I told her I wouldn't require English grammar if she studied Latin, she was all for it.  For those who may be wondering, we used Latina Christiana I.  

She had so much fun that she's quite ready for a second year.  This course is rather easy compared to a high school curriculum but by completing Latina Christiana II, she will have one credit of foreign language.  Not to mention a leg up in vocabulary and grammar.

Speaking of grammar, Latin is quite interesting.  Have you ever declined a noun?  Everyone knows how to conjugate a verb (I hope!) but English nouns only have two forms:  possessive and everything else; each either singular or plural.  Latin has five; subject, possessive, indirect object, direct object, and object of the preposition; each either singular or plural and each having their own ending although some endings are the same.  So wherever the noun occurres in the sentence, you know by the ending what it's function is.  For example, we could write "Billy put the dishes on the table." or "Billy put the table on the dishes." and by the noun ending (-a in this the object of the preposition case), there is no confusion.  Handy, isn't it?  

Also, just to make things more interesting, Latin has five declensions: feminine, masculine and neuter, and third, fourth, and fifth declensions (they don't seem to have a label other than that) each with their own endings.  We just touched the third declension the last few lessons this year.

The class had an end-of-year party last week.  They all dressed up in as close of dress as they had available, brought food that would have been eaten in Roman times, and watched a movie that had some Latin spoken in it.  A tunic is basically a pillowcase with holes for the head and arms and a belt around the waist.  Boys' were just below the knee and girls' were ankle length.  Men wore the togas we associate with Romans and women wore something very similar to an Indian sari.  Richelle decided she wasn't a woman yet and I made her a tunic from an old sheet.

The class was lots of fun and, although it required a weekly trip to town, it well worth the time, money and effort.  We're looking forward to next year's classes.