Tayvion’s Story
Tayvion, Artist Who Motivates Youth & People To Be Themselves
“It started with a bite on my neck. I didn’t feel anything for thirty days, but I had really bad fatigue and would randomly fall asleep for hours. I moved into a new place since my dad had kicked me out into the streets of Seattle, when I’m from Canada, so I was scared. All of a sudden I started having a stiff neck and a small “spider bite”—which was what my dad called it knowing both his dogs had Lyme disease—on my neck when I woke up. I was in so much pain that I had to go to the hospital in a country that I wasn’t from. I kept telling doctors that I had neck pain, weird symptoms for four weeks, and brain fog. I would walk downstairs and not know what I was doing. It was so scary, along with me trying to figure out how a spider bite was causing all of these symptoms. I told the hospital and doctors it was a poison spider bite, and they called me crazy. Then a women told me the symptoms I was having were the same as those from Lyme disease.
I looked it up online and my symptoms matched it. I also remembered that the dogs had no appetite at my dad’s house, and that they were getting needle shots in their joints for joint pain. I now realized I had Lyme disease. The pain had gotten so bad that I was rushed to the hospital. Being an immigrant and the hospital not knowing much about Lyme disease, they gave me a small dose of Doxycycline. It relieved some of my Lyme disease symptoms, but not all. I was still having air hunger and Lyme carditis, so I went to see another doctor. She gave me another Lyme disease medication and didn’t even consider my co-infections, although I also got diagnosed with babesia and bartonella.”
Stories reflect the experiences and perspectives of the individuals featured and are not intended as medical advice.
