Care for a Lyme?

I woke up last Wed morning to Steve telling me he'd been awake all night with what seemed like a fever. He had chills and was generally pretty "flu-like". After telling me this he said, "I think I have Lyme's disease." Being the very compassionate wife that I am, I assumed that he was jumping (or leaping, rather) to conclusions. However, I also know that he had a lengthy discussion with someone at our family camp 2 weeks prior - who talked about their daughter's battle with Lyme's disease. Hmm....

By 6 a.m., he got out of bed, turned on the shower and came back a few minutes later to show me a bite on his waist. It looked like a nasty bug bite - and he kept asking me "what does this look like to you?" Too tired to even see strait, I replied (again, my compassion is overwhelming)"I don't know - I'm not a doctor or a nurse!" Steve went on with his morning and headed out of town on business overnight. When I talked to him that evening, things hadn't changed much, and he headed to bed early. To be honest, I didn't think about it much...as I had been feeling a little run down a few days prior and thought we must have had a bug.

Steve came home Thursday night, to a family of kids excited to go camping the next day. I was exhausted from packing, and we still had more to do. (Don't you just love that about camping? Two days away takes 3 days of packing!!) Steve had taken Friday off to go with us to the Adirondacks to meet friends and to camp for the weekend. But when he came home Thursday night and showed me the rash, I became more convinced that maybe Steve really did have Lyme's disease. After calls to the dr., he went on a antibiotic, we packed up the car, and he went to bed. I was convinced that this antibiotic (that came in TWO pills, mind you) would have my husband feeling like a happy camper by morning.

As you've probably guessed, the next morning - Steve felt awful. He took his temperature and was convinced that there was something wrong with the thermometer when it read 103. I knew, very quickly that we'd either be staying home or camping without Steve. We weren't planning on leaving until afternoon, but when I told the kids that daddy was sick - they were immediately concerned that we couldn't go camping. Steve encouraged me to go without him - but could I do it? The kids were desperate for me to say "yes", and in a moment of weakness - I did. At about 8:15 a.m. I put a call into my friend, who has a lovely responsible, 11 year old daughter that is loved by my whole family. I felt like I was a kid again asking if she could "come camping with us." By 10 a.m. - her mom had called back to say that she was willing! I almost cried! Of course my friends who were meeting us were more than willing to help, but they have 3 kids of their own and I thought another pair of hands would be helpful.

And this, my friends, is how I ended up taking 3 kids camping solo (with the support of friends, of course)! More later about how Steve is doing and pitching tents in the rain...