artur737
28.10.08, 05:10
Lekarze leczacy wg IDSA oczywiscie odrzucili rozpoznanie choroby z Lyme bo
przeciez Elisa byla ujemna.
Jakims cudem jednak ktos doradzil alternatywne leczenie abx i znowu gra.
Comeback kid
WLA's Rhode recovers from Lyme disease
By Doug Whiteley
The Reporter dwhitele@fdlreporter.com
Winnebago Lutheran's Taylor Rhode had lost control.
He lost control of his pitches, and he lost his energy.
A mysterious illness zapped him of his strength and energy through most of his
freshman and sophomore years.
Everyone who saw Taylor pitch was asking what was wrong with him. He'd pitch
one inning and had to come out of the game because he couldn't throw strikes.
His arm felt strange throwing the ball, and his legs felt worse when he ran.
He couldn't do the things that came natural for years.
"You felt like you wanted to do something, but you can't," said Garrett,
Taylor's brother and battery mate as the Vikings' catcher. "You wanted to give
him the energy to go out and play the best that he could, but you can't."
At one point, Taylor could barely get the ball to Garrett's mitt on a fly.
That was in June of his freshman season, and it was at that time that Taylor
and his family decided he needed to see the doctor.
A few months earlier, he had noticed that something wasn't right when he
couldn't keep up on the basketball floor. He wasn't just loafing up the court;
he simply couldn't run continuously like everyone else.
"I noticed that I couldn't keep up with practice and didn't know why," Taylor
said. "You always think this is wrong, or that is wrong, but you're not
supposed to get so tired being a 16-year-old athlete."
The Rhodes first went to Taylor's pediatrician, who ordered blood tests.
Muscle enzymes were elevated, so Lupus was a consideration.
They also tested for mononucleosis and Lyme disease, but both were negative.
Taylor struggled all summer with weakness, exhaustion and nagging headaches.
He started his sophomore football season, but couldn't make it to the end of
two-a-day practices and didn't play in the opener.
In September, Taylor was in bed sick with fever and worsening headaches.
Almost too sick to be concerned with missing out on his favorite sport, there
were occasions, in the moments when he was drifting in and out of sleep, that
he would wonder why he must go through the ordeal.
"That actually occurred in my mind more than I'd like to admit," Taylor said.
"I went home after football and slept from 4 until 7 o'clock, when I'd get up
and do homework. Sometimes I was too tired to do homework, and I'd lie in bed
and think, 'Why is this happening to me? Why can't I be out doing things with
my friends?' "
Taylor and his mom, Kelly, took the next step and went to Children's Hospital
in Milwaukee, where doctors did another round of tests. Those tests showed
that his enzymes were back up, meaning Lupus was unlikely. Nothing else in
Taylor's blood provided any clues, and the doctor was stumped — but guessed it
might just be a severe infection.
Taylor took the prescribed antibiotics and improved enough in October that he
played the final three football games of the season, but at less than full
strength and skill after missing weeks of practice.
When the prescription ran out in a month, Taylor's health lapsed almost back
to where he was, and going out for basketball was out of the question.
Basketball? Shoot, just going to school was difficult enough. Taylor said
typing was a chore because he couldn't think how to spell. In that kind of
daze, just reading was tough because he couldn't concentrate long enough to
finish more than a couple pages in a sitting.
"Everything up until freshman year came easy to me, and that's why my whole
world got changed when this happened to me," Taylor said.
He'd sleep and sleep some more. He missed days of school, some half days, and
others of which he'd miss a class block or two.
"I couldn't even wake him up, and I'd shake him and shake him," Kelly said.
"You just have to let him sleep to see if the rest would help. It was very
frustrating for him because he's a very active young man."
And he was a good student, but Taylor's grades had slipped from the A-honor
roll as a freshman to Bs and Cs as he strained to get through his sophomore year.
It was clear to Kelly that Taylor was not going to just heal. Being a parent
who has to watch a child struggle with health concerns is excruciating, and
Kelly wasn't going to sit idle. Having dealt with chronic fatigue for many
years, Kelly has found help in natural supplements. She had Taylor try those
and they seemed to work — a little — but they needed more help.
Kelly made a call to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and scheduled an
appointment in April, but she thought that they'd first try Dr. Steven Meress
at Fox Valley Wellness Center in Fond du Lac.
Meress is listed as having several specialties, but it was "Lyme disease" and
"alternative medicine" that gave Kelly hope that he would be open enough to
hear her ideas that it might be Lyme disease even though the clinical work-ups
didn't prove it.
"I just had the feeling how the antibiotics helped him and then (when he was
off them), he'd go back down. I just had the feeling that it was Lymes."
According to the Center for Disease Control:
"Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and is
transmitted to humans by the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. Typical
symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue. ... If left untreated, infection
can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. Lyme disease is
diagnosed based on symptoms, physical findings, and the possibility of
exposure to infected ticks; laboratory testing is helpful in the later stages
of disease.
"Most cases of Lyme disease can be treated successfully with a few weeks of
antibiotics."
Kelly said she couldn't remember a time when Taylor came in contact with a
tick that may have infected him. But what she found through her investigation
is that the disease can spend years dormant in the body, until something
brings it out. That something, she surmised, was a concussion Taylor had
received as a freshman football player.
Dr. Meress put him on strong antibiotics and didn't limit their use to one
month. Taylor made steady progress and contemplated joining the baseball team
late, but thought that it wasn't fair to him or his teammates if he played at
less than his best. Kelly was in favor because she felt he just needed to
focus on regaining his strength.
"As much as I love football, what hurt the most is that I couldn't play
baseball for my dad because I know how much he loves watching me," Taylor said
about his lost sophomore seasons. "That's what hurt the most."
He got back in the game for football in August and has had a successful season
as a quarterback and safety for the Vikings, who will host Poynette at 7 p.m.
Tuesday in the first round of the WIAA Division 4 playoffs.
Taylor splits time at quarterback with sophomore Ian Zahn, but he's thrown for
721 yards and nine touchdowns on 33 of 66 passing. He's run for 268 yards and
three TDs.
"He hasn't felt any problems," said WLA football coach Bill Heinkel. "He felt
really good and has been able to perform at his best. It's been a real nice
turnaround."
Taylor's passes have been on the mark, hopefully foreshadowing that he'll be
throwing the baseball on the corners of the plate next spring when he goes
back to the mound.
His catcher has been happy to have him back in the lineup on the gridiron, too.
"I like having my brother in there, getting to block for him and having him do
good," said Garrett, a senior offensive lineman for the Vikings.
Taylor celebrated his 17th birthday last week. He doesn't know how long he'll
have to live with Lyme disease, or if he'll be able to shake it
