"Milly, player of the year the previous season, a whirl of blond energy across the pitch, had lost her enthusiasm for the beautiful game. That morning, she really didn't want to play: she was tearful and exhausted. There was nothing obviously wrong: no cough, sickness, temperature. Her twin, Esme, was playing but without Milly the team were a player short. I told Milly they needed her."
"Every morning she looked terrible, dark circles beneath her eyes. She complained of perpetual tiredness, talked of being disconcentrated — she later learned to call this brain fog — and mentioned strange stabbing pains, mostly in her feet when she walked. Soon, she was too ill to go to school. Lockdown was over but it had become a permanent state for Milly, my wife, Lisa, and me."
A nature-writing parent and journalist recounts profound guilt as a daughter became chronically ill after a countryside trip. The child displayed fatigue, tearfulness, dark circles, brain fog and stabbing pains that worsened despite encouragement to continue normal activities. A single October football match exemplified the child's collapse and the family's failure to secure timely answers from medical professionals. Daily life eroded as school attendance became impossible and the family entered a prolonged period of illness. The underlying cause was later identified as infection with Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium responsible for Lyme disease, hiding in connective tissue and impairing immune response.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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