A gardener's tragedy....

My Yucca bloomed. This was a gift from my neighbor Rita. I didn't care for them, but this bloom stalk is gorgeous, so now I'm hooked!

If you love gardening like I do, then you'll understand when you hear my sad story of what has happened over the past few weeks, and why I consider it a tragedy.

That is, what happened to this gardener, not her garden...

I wasn't feeling well at all....I had a headache, a stiff neck, and a few other things. I went to my doctor who said I had a virus. No medicine was required.

A week later I felt worse. I went to the ER. When I went to put on the hospital gown, I had a gigantic rash on my right shoulder.  They took blood and everything came back normal. The doc agreed I had a virus. He gave me an antibiotic and I went home.

A week later I had an ear infection. I went to MedExpress. I told the nurse practitioner about the rash, and I said I was surprised it was still there. She looked at it and asked if I was tested for Lyme disease. I said the hospital talked about sending it out. She called over there and they never did. She took my blood and a week later I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease, Level 1. She prescribed doxycycline - she said this is the drug you take for Lyme. It'll cure your ear infection, and if you do have Lyme, you'll get a total of 21 days' worth of the drug.

~and that same week~

I was almost done with my "floating" perennial garden. My grandson Max hauled twenty five bags of brown mulch from the store and down the hill to my back yard. I had been saving a ton of newspapers to spread out among the plants, and my friend came and spread the mulch around the plants. I helped. It was 90 degrees out.

I had asked my friend to weed whack the back of my yard where there was tall brush. I thought I should get rid of it to cut down on the ticks. We got everything done and I was pleased with my floating garden.

I can't even remember when it started, but I got the worse case of poison ivy I've ever had in my life. It just seems to keep going on and on. I believe I inhaled the vapors and it got in my blood stream, if possible.

I've done a lot of research on Lyme disease and it's not pretty. I'm going to write another post on it.

Have any of you gotten Lyme disease? Please share your story so we can all learn from each other.

Be safe my gardening friends,

~Ann

libbylottie@yahoo.com