Help For Ethan’s Lyme treatment

What should have been one of the most
exciting transitional periods of our son’s
life took a turn that we never saw coming.

Our 19 year old son, Ethan Handy,
concluded his senior year with a 4.0 GPA
that was held since his first year of
kindergarten. The year was filled with
volleyball games, scholarship applications, all the usual social outings and anticipation of college at Cal Baptist University.
Although Ethan spent most of this time
enduring chronic daily headaches and neck
pain he had a fulfilling senior year.

After graduation, a fun filled summer
awaited - endless beach days and outings
with friends occurred without a hitch until July 31st  - the day everything in our 
families life started to change. Ethan had
spent the day with friends at the lake and
he called me while he was driving home
“Mom,” he said “I don’t know what just
happened but all of the sudden I felt like all the energy in my body just drained out of
me” unalarmed at the time I just told him to
continue home and get some rest. As I
shrugged off this bell that was going off in
his body, I just assumed he had burned the candle at both ends with the typical
abundance of activities that senior year
and summer come with.

The next morning at 6 am my husband and I were awakened by Ethan shrieking to come into his room. We found him on the floor in pain and completely weak. An ambulance
trip to the ER revealed mycoplasma
pneumonia. Armed with a Z-PAC we went home and for the next few days it seemed
that Ethan was on the mend. However, that was short lived, within a few weeks
mysterious symptoms started popping up.
Irregular heart beat pattens, near fainting
spells, shortness of breath, pain and
difficulty when eating food to name a few. We saw a specialist that did tons of
bloodwork showing that he still had
mycoplasma pneumonia but also had
Epstein-Barr virus, a gut infection called
yersinia, and an autoimmune disorder
called Sjogren's. Ethan immediately started medications to address these issues.

At that, it was the end of summer and his
freshman year of college was about to startHesitancy was mixed with excitement as
he entered this new phase of his life.
During freshman year, first semester Ethan did his best to make the most of it and he
always kept up a brave face towards
everyone as he endured what’s refered to
as an “invisible illness”- you look fine on the outside but you do not feel well at all on
the inside.  

Although he had some good times his first
semester,  he was always feeling miserable and was pleading for things to get better. 
He decided to keep his pain and hardships a secret so very few people knew what was going on and even before the quarantine, 
he really did not see or talk to anyone for a while. Unfortunately as the months went
by Ethan’s health declined and he made the sobering decision to move off campus and
come back home for 2nd semester. 

These last 9 months have involved multiple ER, urgent care, and specialist visits. He is
currently being overseen by a cardiologist, ENT, pulmonologist, autoimmune/intern
specialist. His symptoms are wide and
varied. He experiences pain daily. His heart rate can go as high as 150 at rest and as low as 40’s, he constantly feels short of breath
with chest pain and heart palpitations,
eating meals has become very difficult and painful, he feels off balance and like he’s on a boat daily.  There is not one minute of
each day he is not enduring some symptom in his body.

We just recently discovered what seems to be the biggest contributor to all of Ethan’s
ailments. Ethan has tested positive for
Lyme disease, Babesia and Bartonella
which are other infections that ticks can 
transmit.  These infections can wreak
havoc and cause a variety of symptoms.
We are also waiting on results for possible
mold exposure. 

Because his symptoms are multi-systemic
and affecting so many organs we are
seeking out supportive care from a
naturopath and homeopath in addition to
his mainstream team of doctors.

We cannot leave any stone unturned and
won’t stop until he is well again. We are
reaching out to family and friends to help
us help our son.

Many Blessings,
Kole & Danielle Handy