(The recording above is the radio program “Lyme Disease Controversy Comes to the Capitol“, broadcast on New Hampshire Public Radio by Elaine Grant on Monday, February 01, 2010.)

I have Lyme Disease. I caught it when I was around five years old.

You get it from the ‘deer tick’ (aka the ‘baby tick). Fundamentally, Lyme disease is a bacterial infection.

Where did this all begin? Well, let me tell you…
I was about five years old (my memory of precisely when is obviously not perfect). I held no fear of ticks or insects, having grown up barefoot and wild in the forests and swamps around Chappequa, New York. As most young children are, I was impervious to any fear of nature, insects or animals.

Ticks do not crawl across the skin like many other parasites, nor do they hop around as 6 legged jumping beans like fleas (yech!). They find a nice, sometimes shaded, piece of skin (mine was behind my ear) and begin to make a home for themselves.

Continue reading Living with Lyme Disease – 30 years and counting… →