One day, I noticed that my then 5 year old was only smiling with half his mouth.  My first thought was that he had seen a cartoon character do it and thought it was cool.  I asked him to smile normally.  He smiled with a half smile.  I didn’t think much more of it.  The next day he was still doing it and I was slightly annoyed that he wouldn’t smile his normal smile.  That evening hubby asked him to wink.  He winked with one eye and said he couldn’t do the other one.  Hmmmm, normally he can wink either eye and he thinks it’s funny because I can’t.  We asked him to shut both eyes tight.  He could squeeze one shut, but not the other.  Now we were worried!  A quick internet search turned up Bell’s Palsy.  The next day I made an appointment with our pediatrician to confirm the diagnosis and see what caused it.  She said that a lot of times no cause is found, but one of the causes can be Lyme disease.  She went through a whole list of questions to see if he had been bitten and we didn’t realize what it was.  We couldn’t think of any bites and we definitely hadn’t noticed any ticks on him.  We did mention that on a recent camping trip, there were a lot of mosquitoes and it was possible that what we thought was a mosquito bite may have actually been a tick bite.  Off to the hospital lab I went with a very unhappy 5 year old!  Fortunately there was no line and the nurses were very efficient and friendly.  A few days later, we got the results – Lyme disease.  The cure was simply to continue the 21 days of antibiotics we had received at the first appointment.  We were relieved, but we also realize the importance of checking the kids (and ourselves) for ticks after spending time outdoors.

Part of camping is being outdoors and frequently in the woods.  Along with annoying mosquitoes and other bugs are ticks.  One of the diseases that ticks carry is Lyme disease.  The best way to prevent Lyme is to use a bug spray that contains at least 20% DEET especially during warmer months when ticks are more active.  For more information on preventing and/or diagnosing Lyme disease, see the CDC’s website.