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Joanne Baskett, a very busy mother of three, had no idea that the tiny ticks she found on her cat could carry the disease, let alone completely destroy her life in just a few years.
A few days later, while she was cutting the hedge at the back of her garden, she found one of the insects buried in her own skin and removed it with the same tick tool that she had. She had used for her pet.
When a red, visible rash appeared around the bite, she went to see her GP, who gave her a medicine against ringworm.
And by the time, six weeks later, she had had fever and flu-like symptoms, swollen throat, aching ears, and heavy legs. Joanne did not think it had anything to do with the bug that had bitten her into her. garden.
In fact, Joanne, whose children were six, nine and thirteen years old, had been infected with Lyme disease, a bacterial disease transmitted by the deer tick, which is about the size of a poppy seed .
The disease is rare, with less than a third of deer ticks carrying it and less than five percent of the bites causing an infection.
(Image: Joanne Baskett)
Incredibly, however, when Joanne finally discovered the nature of the mysterious disease that was slowing down her body, paralyzing her vital organs, including her stomach, bladder, and intestines, she discovered that she had been very unlucky.
The American scientists who tested her discovered that she had been infected on at least THREE occasions: once in Greece, once in the United States, then near the tick in her garden in Swindon, Wilts. .
The composition of Lyme disease is different in each region and it had four different strains, which it could have contracted only in these countries.
But by the time she was finally diagnosed, Joanne had become a shadow of herself, bedridden, unable to walk, eat or even wash and needing 24-hour care.
And because the pathogens in her body had suppressed her immunity, Joanne was also battling HPV squamous cell carcinoma – the early onset of cancer – which earned her 36 surgeries with much of her reproductive organs and excretors removed.
(Image: Getty Images / iStockphoto)
Yet she has not received treatment for Lyme disease – the cause of all her problems – despite three different clinical diagnoses of the disease.
Joanne, 46, says the NHS totally denies Lyme disease, saying the tests in Britain were not thorough enough to verify that the disease was positive in many cases.
She said, "The NHS will not treat me. They only give us serological tests that look for antibodies, but since I was on steroids at the time, I was bitten and I could not produce antibodies, so they ruled out the possibility of the disease of Lyme.
"Since then, I have been diagnosed with three different professionals in Germany, America and Ireland.
"And to my amazement, I did not have a Lyme strain like most people, I had four. I had been bitten and infected with Lyme Disease at least three times.
"I had a positive result for your Lyme strains and seven infections caused by Lyme.
"Two of them were from America, and were probably picked up when I was in Connecticut in 1993.
"And one came from Europe, probably during a hike in the Greek islands, where I was bitten by many insects.
(Image: Joanne Baskett)
"He ruined by life. I do not have any life anymore. I am permanently disabled now, I have spent the last eight years of my life in my bedroom.
"Caregivers come three times a day to help me undress. Often, I am too sick to be helped in my wet room, so they have to wash me in bed. Sometimes I can not stand up or even hold anything.
"Had I been diagnosed earlier, my illness would certainly have stopped progressing until now, that is, total bowel palsy, paralysis of the stomach, and paralysis of the bladder.
"Slowly but surely, my organs fail me, and it's scary.
"I feel completely devastated. Angry is not the right word, I would say broken heart, that all my life was not as I hoped, and all because of a tick.
"I do not know what will happen to me How much time do I have left My children only have me in their life When I'm not here they will not have anyone.
Joanne was one in three family mom, a human resources advisor traveling around the country to visit clients, when she decided to go gardening on a hot June day in 2009.
She said: "Three days ago, I had looked after the cat, felt some clumps and realized that it was ticks. So I removed them with the help of a tick treatment tool. But I never knew that they could spread the disease, I was totally unaware of that.
"While I was cutting the hedge, I found one on my right leg.
"I had the habit of checking the tool to take it out, but it was small enough and quite difficult to remove.A few days later, I had a rash around from where I'd been bitten.
"It was only six weeks later that I felt really burnt and not myself.
"My throat was swollen, I had a bad ear and my legs were heavy, and I started to get hot and cold chills."
(Image: Joanne Baskett)
Joanne's health quickly deteriorated to the point where she was no longer able to get up from bed.
And her long-time partner left her barely a year after the onset of her symptoms, leaving her alone to take care of her three young children.
She said, "The disease quickly affected my whole body. I can not eat because my stomach is paralyzed and my intestines do not empty without machinery, because it is also paralyzed.
"My knowledge is very weak and I can not often think or speak correctly. I can not walk.
"At first, my doctor told me that I had fibromyalgia and EM / CFS. I thought to start.
"Then a friend told me that a rash meant that you were suffering from Lyme disease and I started doing some research. I started to realize that what I had was the symptoms and not the illness.
"It was when I visited a specialized clinic in the United States and discovered that I had four types of Lyme disease. I did tests in Germany and Ireland and the results were the same.
"But when I took over the tests at my GP, the NHS did not want to know."
Joanne says that she was a "good mom" for her kids before she got sick and "a little greedy".
She said, "It was absolutely devastating and soul-destroying.
"I could not be a good parent for my children, and they did not have a proper mother.
"I was not able to do the things that parents should be able to do, I could not go to their sport or prepare them to eat when they came home.
"They had a very difficult education, they saw so much of my struggle and even now they see me undergo so many surgeries and they are still improving.
"I love to cook and I love Mediterranean cuisine. I always cooked fresh meals for my children. But I will never be able to eat these foods again.
"Because my stomach is paralyzed, I vomit everything I eat. I now drink water and organic dark chocolate squares that melt in the mouth.
"That's all I've been eating since last year and I lost 25% of my weight at that time."
Joanne thinks more needs to be done to warn the public of the dangers of ticks that carry Lyme disease.
She said: "These ticks can contain more than four pathogens. If you get bitten by one of them and are told you are going to become disabled or go well, we do not take it seriously enough.
"I did not know that tick bites could do that, and I ended up losing my house, my career, my partner, everything.
"I am a completely different person than I was. I worked hard, I went to university, I did a lot of studies to get to where I was, and it was for nothing. I feel that my talent has been wasted.
"Now my brain is affected, my eyesight is no longer good and my cognition is deteriorating.
"If I had known what I know now, I might have been able to get help faster, now there is no time, and it's very scary."
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