“My family needs me, the world needs me. Please help if you can.”
It takes a lot of courage to ask for help, and it is not something the patients we have met or worked with do lightly or easily. For many, it takes months or years beyond the point of really needing help to finally be ready to ask for it…or, more likely, to no longer have a choice.
Kerri Currier / Squamish Chief, June 4, 2015
Squamish is a gorgeous natural playground to raise a family. However, the security I had in nature came to a halt upon learning the reality of Lyme disease treatment in B.C. I presented to the walk-in clinic with half a tick in my arm and was told not to worry about Lyme in the area. I’m now dealing with late-stage Lyme disease, its long term treatment and costs.
Health Canada has confirmed that the southern mainland and coast of British Columbia are endemic for Lyme disease. Many people will never notice they were bit by a tick and erythema migrans rash will show up in less than 50 per cent of people, according to the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation (Canlyme).
The foundation says current testing in Canada misses 62 per cent of Lyme. It should be a clinical diagnosis and it is commonly misdiagnosed.
“Dealing with a life altering chronic pain and illness is like grieving for the death of someone close to you, except you are grieving for yourself and what you are unable to do now.”
Kate is about to embark on a very big and very far away chapter in her recovery. Hers will be an international migration for care, and across the Rockies and beyond there are a touching number of Lyme patients pulling for her, excited and hopeful for this chapter to bring her the most that it possibly can toward her recovery.
Kate Lamport, Helena MT
Continue reading Kate’s Story ~ And a new and far away chapter in a local patient’s recovery
By CHRIS PETERSON Hungry Horse News, May 27, 2015
In April 2010, Angela Daenzer was doing field work as a biologist for the Flathead National Forest when she startled a moose up the Middle Fork. She ducked off into the brush to avoid the angry animal, and while the moose encounter was a bit scary, there were worse things to come.
While hiding in the brush, Daenzer picked up a tick that bit her in the scalp. After a shower hours later, she found the tick and, disgusted by it, she pulled it out of her hair and threw it in the toilet.
Daenzer is convinced that tick gave her Lyme disease, or at the very least a disease very similar to it. Within a week, she became very ill. She got the chills and a sore throat and then what she and her doctors thought was an ear infection and then severe jaw pain.
As we said in part one, there are a LOT of moms living with Lyme disease in Rocky Mountain states and provinces. Some contracted Lyme here, some did not, and some don’t know, but we all face unnecessary obstacles to diagnosis and care that could be reduced or eliminated through better awareness, better treatment guidelines, and better policies and application of guidelines in our respective local areas.
Continue reading Rocky Mountain Moms With Lyme, Part Two ~ Happy Mother’s Day!
These moms and many more are living with Lyme Disease in Northern Rocky Mountain states. Just surviving this illness makes them all heroes. But the longer they live with this illness, the more they learn, and the more people they reach, in their communities and beyond.
Please note that there are many more than those mentioned here making a difference. This is just a starter set, because May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and because we are heading toward Mother’s Day.
Continue reading Rocky Mountain Moms With Lyme, Part One ~ Making A Difference
Northern Rockies Lyme Disease Coalition 