Under Our Skin Page #2

and just thought we were both nuts.

There's evidence that Lyme disease

has been around for a long time,

but here in the United States,

it was the early 1970s

when a Connecticut mom

looked around her neighborhood

and noticed something

was not quite right.

Well, I was frightened, really,

and doctors, you know, were insinuating

that it was all in my head.

In the '70s, we were all

having strange symptoms,

headaches and stiff neck

and swollen joints.

As I looked around the neighborhood,

I realized that there were others

that were having swollen knees

and rashes.

Finally, when our symptoms

just weren't going away,

I decided to call

the state health department

and report this mysterious disease

that seemed to be coming to our area.

In 1981,

I discovered the causative agent

of Lyme disease.

My discovery was published

in the Science magazine

and considered as a breakthrough.

We didn't know how to treat it.

It was a newly described germ.

It looked like syphilis

under the microscope,

but that's as far as we got.

We also didn't have any idea

how widespread it was,

how much suffering it caused,

and the controversies to come.

Lyme disease is caused by bacteria,

the Borrelia spirochete.

It's spiral-shaped,

so it can drill through tissue

and get into just about any part

of the body.

The most common form of transmission

is through the bite

of several species of tick

commonly known as deer ticks.

There's bacteria inside the tick,

so when it bites you,

it just starts sucking up your blood

like Dracula would do.

While it's, like, sucking in the blood,

the bacteria will be released,

and then it just gets into the blood,

and it gets into your heart,

and then your brain,

and then you have Lyme disease.

It'd seem like for every thing

that I'd read about it

that it was harmful,

there was always something

I'd read about it that said,

"No, no, no.

It's actually

very easy to cure."

Well, when I saw this doctor,

you know, he said,

"You've got

a long road ahead of you."

I, Mandy, take you, Sean...

- To be my husband...

- To be my husband...

- To have and to hold...

- To have and to hold...

- In sickness and in health...

- In sickness and in health...

- To love and to cherish...

- To love and to cherish...

- Until death do us part.

- Until death do us part.

- It's not the pale...

- Husband and wife.

That excites me

There's no difference

in how I feel about her now

and how I felt about her then.

We'll see if he says that

when I'm starting to get treatment

and I'm all...

No

It's just the nearness of you

I think, like a lot of people

who've had Lyme disease,

I've been led to wonder

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