My short, sharp shock ONCE BITTEN...
Sometimes it’s the smallest things that can have the biggest impact on your life…
How could a tiny tick cause such trauma?
Michelina De Feo, 27, Colchester
WORDS: FIONA KINLOCH. MODELLING PHOTO: ROBERT WONG. TICK PHOTO (LIBRARY SHOT): GETTY
L
imping to the sofa, so exhausted and weak. I threw myself down Not like me at all. and cradled my leg. It’s just flu, I reasoned. ‘Ouch!’ I cried. But, working as a model, Looking down, I always needed to be on I spotted an angrytop form. looking lump on my thigh. And I was nowhere near. Red and swollen, my leg Since the age of 18, I’d was pounding. had a constant stream of Examining the area, modelling jobs. I rolled my eyes. I’d collaborated with big I should have guessed. brands, such as The Sun and Another insect bite. I was truly living my dream. Living on a farm with my But, as I stood in front of mum Viv, 51, and my dad Vic, 50, in Colchester, I was used to the short bursts of sharp pain from being nibbled by a bug. In the middle of the countryside, we were surrounded by horses and wild animals. So, rolling down my trouser leg, I tried to carry on with my day. Later that year, in 2014, I started suffering from bad migraines. As a model, I was living my dream My whole body ached, and I felt
24
the camera, finding the perfect pose and summoning a smile was becoming a struggle. I even had to take impromptu breaks while I was on set. Some days, I didn’t make it in to work at all. I was dizzy, my head pounded and my whole body ached. At the GP’s, I hoped I’d be given medication, and thought I’d be better in days. But he just gave me a confused look. ‘I think that it’s vertigo,’ he said. However, each time I went back to the GP over the next few months, I got a different diagnosis. Chronic fatigue, kidney infection, even depression. No medication worked. With no answers and my health deteriorating,
I had to quit modelling in October 2014. One morning in the summer of 2015, I sank onto the sofa next to my friend, who was watching TV. ‘Look, Mich, this sounds like you,’ she said, pointing at the telly screen. Edging forward in my seat, I scrambled for the remote to turn it up louder. It was a news feature about Lyme disease, an illness that’s caused by bacteria, spread by bites from infected ticks. As the presenter listed the symptoms, it felt as if he was describing me. Staring at the TV, I shook my head in disbelief. ‘I haven’t even heard of the disease before,’ I
I was dizzy, my head pounded and my body ached
