One day during the beginning of August my face went numb and one of my legs started to have a horrible pricking sensation. I had read that this is one of the first signs of third stage Lyme disease. That day I scheduled my appointment for the Infectious Disease doctor but he was unable to see me until the 15th of September. So I headed up to Wisconsin to see a doctor in the local “Lyme area” that could get me in for an appointment that week. He gave me more antibiotics (doxycycline this time) and said that he “hoped it could help me.” I stayed in Wisconsin for a few weeks and still experienced a major decline in my health even to the point of having severe heart palpitations. When I tried to see this doctor again his nurse said that if it had progressed to my heart it was out of their hands, I would need to go to the ER or see an infectious disease specialist.
This was hard on me, although, I think it was equally hard for my husband. Day after day he patiently cared for me, then for weeks at a time we were forced to be apart from each other. The feeling of helplessness he experienced from watching me so quickly digress was almost as stressful for him as the disease its self was for me.
While I was still in Wisconsin for testing Kevin and I spoke briefly on the phone one morning. I didn’t want him to worry about me, so told him all was well and that I would be coming home the next day as we had planned. Later that afternoon my pulse raced so badly that I knew the ER was unavoidable. I called Kevin back and told him about my heart suddenly growing worse. On the phone he sounded calm and positive but after we hung up he wept in frustration. He felt so helpless! What was going on?! As he cried out to God it began to rain, it was as if God was weeping too. The rain washed the tears from my husband’s face and his heart was comforted in God. Everything would be okay. From that moment on – we claimed the rain as a sign that God was making me better.

The ER doctor in Wisconsin held no answers and sent me home claiming I was probably just stressed. He said it was “Highly unlikely” the disease could have progressed to my heart only one month from the date of the bite. The next day I returned to Indiana with my heart still racing out of control at 140 to 150 beats per minute. Yet I still had two more weeks until my appointment with the Infections Disease Doctor.

One evening I started having pain in my chest again. Then my heart began to race. I called our Chapel pastors wife to come be with me until my husband could get there. Kevin rushed home from work and we decided to just try to make it through the night at home. In the morning I began to have shooting pains through my arm and my hand was numb. I was sure I was having a heart attack. My heart was racing at a resting rate of 159 beats per minute. Blood vessels in my legs began to burst and small, painful bruises covered my legs. Kevin packed me into the car and we raced for the ER, dropping our eight month old son off with a good friend on the way. Through all of this a simple children’s song played over and over in my head; “God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He’s so good to me.” I remember being very, very afraid. I hate hospitals and was so scared of the unknown. As they wheeled me away on a stretcher I could see out the waiting room door. The beautiful sunny day suddenly grew dark, and a nurse commented, “Oh great, it looks like it’s going to rain.” I wept. God was with me.
I was hospitalized for four days with heart monitors stuck all over me. They did every test imaginable on my heart and everything came back normal (this is typical for Lyme Carditis patients). It rained the entire time I was there. In fact, it rained so much that we broke all previous rain records. A storm that originated in Texas came all the way through to Northern Indiana and just kept building up steam along the way! Since the beginning of Indiana’s’ record keeping, there was never a rain or flood so great as this. Other hospitals started moving their patients into our hospital because, for some reason the water never touched us. All of the nurses were trapped at the hospital and not allowed to leave. Everyone that came into my room knew it was raining for me. This was my sign. God was going to make me better.