Letter writing activity

 Carly Power suggested I write this letter. 

"And throw it away?" I said
"No. And mail it to him. He needs to hear it"

So I guess I will, but I'll put it here first. 

Dr. Steve Burgoyne,

I have some feelings of anxiety in writing you this letter, which I think reflects the inner turmoil I’ve been feeling since leaving my appointment with you. This all may seem like an exaggeration because I was mentally preparing for you to be dismissive, and then when you were, instead of feeling validated, I felt lost.

I have a dangerous bacteria living inside of me after a tick bite. That much I know. Whether you believe that or not is irrelevant. I didn’t fully comprehend the level of controversy with this bacteria until you let me walk our of your office with a diagnosis of “nothing”, and a prescription of “ignore it and it will go away”.  Politics, I thought, could not interfere with the conversation between two people about one persons body and the strange things occurring inside it, and the others persons professional responsibility.

But at some point while we talked, your nods of understanding and earnest listening shifted to smirks and scanning through my perfect health records with confidence and arrogance.

Our appointment slot was an hour. You left the room, done with our conversation after 10 minutes. I had been struggling with various symptoms for 9 months, interfering with my ability to parent my new baby. 

You explained the way your other, “actually” sick patients tests light up your computer screen with red marks – signifying something is abnormal with their bloodwork. But my blood tests were just boring old black, nothing to see here. What you failed to notice was an entire person in front of you complaining of many strange things happening in many different body systems. If you knew anything about tick-borne illness, you'd know that the lump in my thumb was and is borrelial lymphocytoma. You'd know that a rickettsial infection rarely presents with a relapsing fever, and that I do in fact have a positive test for this infection. 

I did not go to medical school. There’s a certain amount of vulnerability a person has when they ask someone else to help them, help them figure out why their body no longer functions normally after an encounter with an ancient bacteria. Do you not understand the failure and enormous power your words and actions have?

I realize tick-borne illnesses are not your specialty. But I have textbook lyme disease, about as classic a case as you can get, and after hearing my symptoms you told me they do not sound like lyme disease symptoms. You only have to read one paragraph in the one page of your textbook that discusses Lyme Disease, and you would see a description of my symptoms for the last 14 months. But you didn’t ask me about my symptoms, you only asked me to name 2. Perhaps you felt you couldn’t help me, because I had already completed the Gold Standard treatment, so you sent me back to my family doctor (who apologized on your behalf for making me feel so dejected). But the experience has not left me.  

I suggest you take a step back, and look at the literature that confirms your gold standard treatment. All the studies I have looked at, and the work Joseph Burrascano did in Lyme, Connecticut in the 1980s confirms that 3 weeks of Doxycycline has a 100 percent failure rate. Continued infection after the 3 weeks is not a syndrome, it's failed treatment and a continued infection. 

I am writing this letter simply because I have been unable to move on emotionally after our appointment. So I wanted you to know that I wish I’d never met you.

And I hope you one day know what this feels like.

Sincerely, 

Laura Combden