Weekly column by David Rainer By DAVID RAINER Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources A little more than three years ago, Carrie Mason was your normal 16-year-old, looking forward to having a driver’s license and enjoying the outdoors with her parents, Art and Dianne Mason. Everything changed when Carrie unknowingly encountered a small, insect-like creature common to the outdoors – the deer tick. She became ill, and doctors couldn’t make a firm diagnosis. She kept getting worse and worse. About two months after my 16th birthday, I started getting sick,” said Carrie, who was among the 15 hunters at the Buckmasters Life Hunt recently at Sedgefield Plantation near Safford. It took over a year to finally get diagnosed with Lyme disease.” Carrie said she has no idea when she was bitten by the tick. She doesn’t remember any bite with the telltale rash in the shape of a bull’s-eye. I’ve grown up outside,” she said. My dad works at YMCA Camp Chandler (near Wetumpka), so I’ve had ticks on me all the time. So we don’t know when I actually got the disease or which tick gave it to me. At first it was like the flu. Then I stopped eating, totally. I was in the hospital for a little while. They told me it was all in my head. Then they said I had MS (multiple sclerosis), mono (mononucleosis), Crohn’s disease, all sorts of stuff. I’ve been tested for everything, and then we finally found out it was Lyme disease.” Despite her illness, Carrie tried to keep up with her schoolwork until the disease made it impossible. My muscles started getting weak, so I can barely walk now,” she said. I had to start using a walker to get around the house. I have severe stomach pain. I have neurological problems. I have problems with cognitive thinking. When I was in school, my grades started dropping because I couldn’t remember what I had studied.” Because Alabama doesn’t have a facility with the specific treatments needed for an advanced case of Lyme disease, the Masons have had to travel to Washington, D.C., for treatment, much of which is not covered by insurance. She is currently off antibiotics to try to rebuild her immune system. On January 28, I’m going in to have a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) line put in,” she said. Then we’ll do IV antibiotics for about nine months.” To read more please select the link below gdomag/article.asp?articleID=741#.VMJOPBZW58E
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 13:39:02 +0000
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