Juddmansee.com

First off I have to apologize to Max Sheldon. After three weeks I’ve finally figured out that he did not make me sick on his last visit. I love my godson, but being a toddler in daycare his visits frequently turned into some sort of illness so when he came to visit for the first time in months and I felt sick the following day I naturally assumed it was his cute but germy fault.

At the same time I had a runny nose and low fever, a strange rash appeared on the side of my neck. I have a history of getting heat rash during the summer so I didn’t think too much of it, despite its strange round pattern. My fever stuck around for 3 days and my other symptoms appeared to clear up. Over the next two weeks I was tired and had sinus headaches that I chalked up to fall allergies, the Red Sox, and a trip to Vegas.

After I got back from Vegas my headache gradually worsened all week until it awoke me Friday night and I decided to take my temperature again. I knew something was wrong when my temperature was 102.8. When I finally got out of bed the next morning I did a bunch of digging on the internet and figured out that my symptoms (particularly the shape of the rash) were all consistent with Lyme Disease. I went back over the previous three weeks and remembered that 2 days before the mysterious rash and cold, I had been hiking in the White Mountains. A tick must have found its way onto me and into my beard where I wouldn’t have noticed it. I called my doctor who agreed with the assessment and phoned in an antibiotic prescription for me. I’m going in for a follow-up appointment on Wednesday.

Needless to say the past 4 days haven’t been a lot of fun. My temperature has been rocketing between 96.9 (my normal) and 102 over the course of a few hours. My whole body is exhausted and vaguely sore. I’ve managed to get winded taking out the trash or doing the dishes before I end up crawling back into bed. Today I have been awake for about 6 hours and I’ve managed to do a bunch of chores without wearing myself out. Hopefully this means the antibiotics are working and I’ve turned the corner on the worst of the symptoms. Three weeks is a relatively quick amount of time to catch the symptoms in, so a simple course of antibiotics should clear things up. Further updates as events warrant, but I’m feeling pretty good right now!