After 4 years of serious debilitation by a “mystery illness,” young Sally Jordan was finally diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease. She’s much better now, and hopes others can learn from her experience.

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From the Bangor Daily News:

Brewer girl hopes her battle with Lyme disease can help others

Posted March 16, 2012, at 9:47 p.m.

BREWER, Maine — It started with flu-like symptoms and progressed steadily. Fevers and rashes and aching joints followed. For four years, Ralph and Lisa Jordan of Brewer took their daughter to a growing list of doctors. The were seeking an answer to a painfully simple question.

What’s wrong with Sally?

It took nearly four years to find that diagnosis. Four years of pain. Four years of increasingly disabling pain. Four years during which an A-student became unable to last for more than an hour or two in a classroom and slept for much of the day. She had to stop cheering and playing basketball. She had to stop dancing.

Eventually, the mystery illness began having neurological effects.

“I was scared because I didn’t know what was going on,” now 11-year-old Sally said softly during a recent interview. “[One day] I was bending down to grab my pencil and I couldn’t pick it up because I lost feeling in my fingers. And then I lost feeling in my entire arm. I couldn’t write.”

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