Hi! I'm Ralph Birkenmaier and I live in the Blue Ridge Mtns. of SW Virginia in the Riner/Pilot area. This story is for all you foragers out there. This last May I was crawling on the ground in my back yard to get under my house. I later found a tick embedded it my leg and removed it, and treated the wound. Three weeks later while sitting in my house, talking to my wife, I almost went comatose. I suddenly could not speak, I did not know who or where I was, or what was happening to me. When rescue squad showed up I discovered that I could not stand or walk, and communicating with anyone was impossible. Over a 9 1/2 day period, I ended up going to two different hospitals for many different tests. Some of my symptoms, were sometimes that I had a fever over 104 F, I had lost my memory (I did not remember the tick bite), lost my taste for food (I could not keep food down, ate nothing solid for 9 1/2 days), was on a ventilator for a short time, my body was changing chemically, something had my immune system shut down (no white blood cell count found), the teeth in my mouth started abscessing (four removed), almost lost kidneys, and many more symptoms. Eventually got memory back and remembered the tick bite, so the doctors did a tick panel on me and found that I had 'Hard-Tick Relapsing Fever'. The tick bite had put a rare and very dangerous spirochete infection (Borrelia Miyamotoi) in my blood, which if left untreated could have killed me, I am told. After the hospital stay I had to use a wheel chair, and then a walker for a while, along with three weeks of rehab to learn to walk again and to enjoy the taste of food once again. Even now months later, some foods taste strange to me, or my balance still seems off. I do all the cooking at home so I need to see how taste affects me in the future. I also seem to have low energy sometimes. So, be well and be on the look out for hungry ticks. PS: Judson Carroll, hope all goes well with your book
