First of all, thank you for all the good wishes of support from the earlier post. The cardiologist came in earlier and said the heart irregularities have corrected themselves almost 50% over the evening, which is great, but will continue to be monitored for ore days. To follow up on some questions, I actually never saw the typical bullseye mark on my body. Like we all do, I was checking myself every night and asking other hikers to check my back and other areas. To untrained eyes I was fine, however, some of the marks that some took for regular bug bites were, in fact, tick bites. My fitness levels masked the usual initial symptoms of fatigue and so it wasnt until later that the respiratory and cardiac issues finally warranted me to get checked. According to the doctors I probably have had it in my system for 4-6 weeks which is why it is in my heart and causing the irregularities (known as lyme carditis). I found the little guy in the photo resting on my thumbnail only two nights ago and it was after a hotel shower and only after a closer look later I realized it wasnt a freckle! (Zoom in if you can, its ridiculous how small this guy is) Needless to say I think the takeaway point is that this can be serious and isnt always exactly what you may have Googled. I have what they call a multiple bullseye case which means I had quite a few. Theyve also determined that the numbness and tingling in my foot may have been caused by one of the initial bites and I know a lot of the hiker have this issue. So just be cautious and continue to check, recheck, then check again. Im actually most scared by how much I almost didnt get it checked. Hopefully this can help avoid a few future cases. However, I will say that getting all the free chocolate milkshakes I want has been a nice change of pace:) Take care, be safe.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 14:09:58 +0000
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