Aside from Lyme disease and a drug reaction, we’re doing fine

For the first time, the dog and I are on our own at our Camp Sherman cabin. Laurel is off at a family reunion in Kentucky. So Serena and I are keeping things interesting by getting Lyme disease (me) and a Xanax drug reaction (dog). Or so I've diagnosed.

Hey, I’m looking at the bright side: it’s blogging material.

I was planning to write about how Lars Larson, the bozo conservative talk show host, thinks that the Surgeon General’s report on the dire health effects of second-hand smoke is a bunch of crap, because Lars took a glance at it via the Internet and has concluded that the 670 page study is, well, just blowing smoke. What an idiot.

But now that I have a disease to blog about, I’ve got to take advantage of it. For usually I’m abnormally healthy. When I get together with my fellow baby boomers I’m left out of the “let me tell you about my [fill in problem]” discussion. Which is just about all we late 50’s and early 60’s folks seem to talk about.

Finally I have my own story. About a week after our last trip to the cabin, Laurel spotted a suspicious growth on my back. “Oh my god, you’ve never had a bump in that place before. It’s irregular and discolored. You must have skin cancer!”

Well, I’m blessed with a wife who is exceedingly health conscious. And a bit prone to over-anxiousness.

Upon closer inspection with a magnifying glass, the “skin cancer” turned out to be an engorged tick. Following the instructions in a Lyme disease pamphlet we had lying around the house (Laurel is nothing if not well prepared) she managed to pull out the critter with some tweezers.

We put it in some alcohol. And I started researching Lyme disease. By email I asked the Oregon Lyme Disease Network for advice, saying that I probably picked up the tick while hiking or biking in the Camp Sherman area. I got a quick response from Theresa Denham, president of the network.

She told me that Camp Sherman has an higher incidence of Lyme disease than other areas and advised me to get the tick tested by the IgeneX laboratory. I sent the tiny demon off to them last Monday by express mail. Haven’t gotten the results yet.

My family doctor said that I should watch out for symptoms, most notable of which is a bulls-eye rash. This afternoon, after taking a shower, I saw what sure looks like that rash surrounding the tick bite. I’ll be seeking medical treatment tomorrow, for sure. The earlier antibiotics are given, the better. I was fortunate to have seen a tick, and to have been bitten in a clearly visible part of my body.

Of course, there’s a chance I don’t have Lyme disease. In that event, I’ll issue a blog retraction. But I’ll still be glad that I alerted people to the need to take precautions against picking up a tick.

There aren’t many reported cases in Oregon (here’s a national incidence map). However, an article in the Portland Oregonian discussed the controversy that is raging about whether under-diagnosis of cases (according to Lyme disease patient advocates) or mistaken self-diagnosis of cases (according to many physicians) is more likely to be happening.

Regardless, take measures to prevent tick bites. And know the symptoms of Lyme disease.

On the dog front, I can report that Xanax doesn’t do squat to relieve Serena’s thunderstorm anxiety. Yesterday, when the thunder started I gave her one 2mg pill. She spent several hours hiding in closets, under tables, and a desk.

Today, I maxed out the vet’s recommended dose (3mg, one and a half pills) and gave it to her about an hour before the thunder started. The difference was that instead of an anxious dog, I now had an anxious, stumbling, seemingly drunken dog. More interesting, to be sure, but no improvement.

This article by a vet about treating thunderstorm phobia points out some of the side effects of alprazolam (Xanax). I saw several of them this evening.

Serena definitely wasn’t herself. Not even her normal anxious self. In the space of a few minutes she first frantically tried to jump on top of me while I was sitting in a chair, then she curled up on the chair, almost instantly fell asleep, and started snoring loudly while I patted her.

I felt very paternal, sitting there with the head of a zonked-out dog in my lap, trying to soothe away both her thunder phobia and Xanax drug reaction. For a while I even forgot about my Lyme disease.

Which I might not have. When my wife phoned from Kentucky tonight she was incredulous about my self-diagnosis. “There are only a couple of dozen cases in Oregon each year,” she said. “You probably don’t have it.”

Well, we will see. Usually I like the feeling of being special. In this case, though, I’d be happy to be utterly commonplace.

(P.S. Forgot to mention that I'm going to try to find some herbal Rescue Remedy in Sisters tomorrow. It's supposed to work for dogs as well as people. Some dog owners say they've had success with it. Again, we will see.]

Comments

[edison]

Brian,
I've had success with generic benedryl helping dogs cope with thunder and fireworks. 1mg per lb was the recomendation 2 vets gave me. It always works.
Hope your bite turns out to be 'innocent'.
peace

[Carol Ann]

Hi--

Hope your test results came out negative. The mention of ticks brought back thoughts of Grandma Lewis. Whenever I would get a tick on my body, which was often in Little Compton, Grandma had two methods of removal: either touching the end of a hot match to the tick, or grabbing it and twisting the body. Either method seemed to work. Ah, the memories of childhood!

[Molly]

I sure hope you take a course of antibiotics however the test results come back. The tests are not 100% sure, and the consequences of letting an infection go are devastating. You don't want to take any chances with this. The antibiotic course is not all that awful. I"m sure you've learned from your research that that is the thing to do.

--Just a friendly stranger who has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, and who found your site upon doing a blog search.

[Brian]

Molly, I appreciate your advice. I've been tardy in updating my story, which I'll do now.

A day and a half after I wrote this post I decided to go to the Urgent Care clinic in Bend. It was about an hour away, closer than the two hours it would have taken me to get to my regular doctor.

The doctor walked in carrying a medical book opened up to the Lyme Disease page. I liked how she readily admitted that she didn't know much about the signs and symptoms.

She looked at my back and said, "Yes, you have a rash." We talked about the fact that the tick probably was on my back for a week. We acknowledged that I didn't have any symptoms other than the rash. And that the results of the tick test hadn't come back yet.

In the end, she thought that a three week course of Doxycycline was in order. I certainly didn't argue with her.

After about a week on the antibiotics I got a call from IgeneX, the testing lab. The tick was negative for Lyme disease. Also negative for two other diseases that I had asked them to test for. That was a relief.

But I remembered what the Bend doctor had said when I mentioned, "If the tick comes back negative for Lyme disease, then I could stop taking the antibiotics, right?" She replied, "Well, you should check into the reliability of the test. Tests can be wrong some of the time."

So I'm going to continue taking the full course of antibiotics. Everyone I talked to said that would be a good idea. You said the same thing.

I'm sorry that you've been diagnosed with the disease. I'm not really a praying person, but I can tell you that I hope you are cured--which is my way of praying, and maybe amounts to the same thing.

You're doing a service by helping people like me understand the disease better. I realize that my saying that doesn't take away the distress of having Lyme disease. But your willingness to share your experience is wonderful. Thanks so much.