My short, sharp shock

ONCE BITTEN...

My short, sharp shock

Sometimes it’s the smallest things that can have the biggest impact on your life… Michelina De Feo, 27, Colchester

Limping to the sofa, I threw myself down and cradled my leg. ‘Ouch!’ I cried. Looking down, I spotted an angrylooking lump on my thigh. Red and swollen, my leg was pounding.

Examining the area, I rolled my eyes.

I should have guessed. Another insect bite. Living on a farm with my 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.

My whole body ached, and I felt WORDS: FIONA KINLOCH. MODELLING PHOTO: ROBERT WONG. TICK PHOTO (LIBRARY SHOT): GETTY so exhausted and weak. Not like me at all. It’s just flu, I reasoned. But, working as a model, I always needed to be on top form.

And I was nowhere near. Since the age of 18, I’d had a constant stream of modelling jobs.

I’d collaborated with big brands, such as The Sun and I was truly living my dream. But, as I stood in front of As a model, I was living my dream

How could a tiny tick cause such trauma?

I was dizzy, my head pounded and my body ached 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 so poorly but didnÕt know why

The disease had stolen my health, career and social life whispered, feeling stunned. But as I listened to the presenter, I cast my mind back to the bite I’d had on my leg over a year before. The dots began to join. Sceptical of the diagnoses I’d had in the UK, where Lyme disease is rare, I decided to look abroad for answers.

I consulted a private phlebotomist who took a blood sample, and sent it to a medical laboratory in Germany.

After sending it to the lab, all I could do was wait.

And, just a few days later, I heard the ping of an incoming email on my laptop.

Test results , the subject line read.

I opened it and... The results were positive. I had contracted Lyme disease.

At first, I felt relieved. Finally, I had answers!

But then sadness hit me. I’d read up on Lyme disease and knew that it wouldn’t be easy to cure. If left untreated, Lyme disease can cause a complex debilitating disorder.

The draining exhaustion, the crippling headaches. They wouldn’t go away. ‘I feel so cheated,’ I sobbed brokenly to Mum.

I was 23, I should’ve been living life to the full. But now I was a prisoner of my own body. Lyme disease had stolen my health, my career and my social life.

But, after sobbing to my mum, I knew there was no time for self-pity.

All I could do was hope to find ways that I could manage my illness.

So, soon after, I opted to have private care.

I spent £5,000 on having intravenous antibiotic treatment. And, in 2016, I travelled to America to meet a Lyme-disease specialist. The medication they prescribed for me helped –

In the US for treatment

my body didn’t ache as much – but I was still so tired, I couldn’t face going back to work.

And three years later, in 2019, I was diagnosed with endometriosis – a condition where tissue of the womb lining grows in other places, such as the ovaries and Fallopian tubes.

It can be brought on by Lyme disease and it’s caused yet more health problems for me.

Now, my days are still dictated by my illnesses. I’m living a completely different life from the woman in those glamorous modelling photos.

I can’t believe that such a tiny bug has caused me so much anguish.

WHAT IS LYME DISEASE? It is a bacterial infection that can be spread to humans by infected ticks. These ticks are most commonly found in grassy and wooded areas in southern England and the Scottish Highlands.

Symptoms include a circular, red skin rash around a bite that can appear up to three months after being bitten and usually lasting several weeks. Those infected also suffer flu-like symptoms, such as headaches, aching muscles and nausea. Around 1,000 cases of Lyme disease are diagnosed in England and Wales every year.

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