Bugging You From San Juan Island

The day I was bit,

by that little tick,

He was so clever,

Did I feel the stick?

 

Not once did I notice

A sting, itch, or prick,

Since with his own anaesthetic

He came equipped.

 

That “needle” he plunged

Down into my skin

carried anticoagulant

To make my blood thin.

 

He slurped it right up

From out of my vein

Liquid dinner for one

Parasite champagne.

 

There’s more to it though

Than a simple blood toast

This tick didn’t know

He was a parasite host.

 

A stealth pathogen

Living inside

Used that little tick’s saliva

To take a ride

 

Down into my vein,

As that hungry tick fed,

The stealth pathogen

Through my body did spread.

 

I didn’t know then

That the bite of this tick

Would leave me with something

That would make me so sick..

 

The stealth pathogen

Shaped like a corkscrew

Drilled all through my body…

I thought it was flu.

 

From my head to my toes

I ached every day

Wishing the pain

Would all go away.

 

Doctor to doctor

I went to in vain,

All shook their heads mystified

No diagnosis to be claimed.

 

My knees swelled one day

All my joints hurt,

But the red bullseye rash

Was the target alert!

 

It was one more clue

In the great mystery

That helped one wise doctor

To diagnose me.

 

The test came back,

“Positive” for LYME.

It could be cured,

If it had been caught in time.

 

That wasn’t the case,

Since for me it had been,

Days, months and years

And pain with no end.

 

I’m slowly improving

One day at a time.

From this awful disease

Spread by a tick called Lyme.

 

Chronic Lyme disease is a controversial diagnosis.   One many will not acknowledge until more research reveals how this organism has the ability to persist in its human host and evade antibiotics.   Borrelia burgdorferi, responsible for Lyme Disease is one of several pathogenic organisms carried by ticks.  Current research shows it can become resistant to antibiotics, enhanced partly by its ability to change life forms in its host.   Morphing into a cyst with its own body armor, it shields itself from antibiotics designed to penetrate the corkscrew form of the organism.  Once the antibiotics are stopped or no longer effective, the organism is free to begin replicating itself again.

***Text copyright 2011 by Cynthia Brast.  No part of this story may be reproduced in any form without the expressed written consent of the author.