At first, Highland ranger Lynn Munro presumed she had the “expedition blues” following a life-changing trip to Peru.
The 30-year-old former mountain guide returned home from a visit to South America in 2017.
She’d been working hard for years, and it seemed to have caught up to her with a low mood and flu-like symptoms.
But the fog failed to lift, and her condition deteriorated further.
It was having an ever-greater impact on her life – and one day she realised things needed to change.
‘I just couldn’t think straight’
“I had a car accident for the first time in my life on a very easy bit of road,” she recalled.
“I couldn’t piece it together, I was exhausted.
“I’d gone to the doctor with cognitive problems, I just couldn’t think straight.”
Lynn had blood taken and, a few weeks later, she was told she had Lyme disease.
She later realised she’d likely been bitten by a tick during a trek along the Great Glen Way – something of a hotspot for the blood-sucking insects.
“There was no part of me that thought it was Lyme disease (when I first fell ill),” she said
One of the tell-tale signs of Lyme disease is a large rash, radiating from the tick bite in the shape of a bullseye or target.
“But not everyone has the bullseye rash, that wasn’t something I presented with,” Lynn added.
“Looking back I did have sort of an eczema rash on my neck – and I had been bitten around there and on my back.”
Still affected by Lyme disease five years on
Though her symptoms of Lyme disease have lessened over time, Lynn admits it still affects her to this day.
She explained: “My body cannot cope with other illnesses, it has definitely lowered my tolerance to catching other viruses and infections.
“I contracted Covid in June, so for the last two months I’ve had to take it easy and get lots of sleep.
“I used to be someone who could live on five hours of sleep, but that just can’t happen anymore, I need eight to 10 at a minimum.
“You have warning signs that you perhaps need to watch yourself, maybe fatigue is building, I’ve got much better at recognising when to say no.”
‘Lyme disease lit a fire inside me’
At the end of 2018, Lynn was suffering a relapse of her illness, with a wisdom tooth infection “raging” inside her body.
But, through sheer fluke, her entire life changed once again.
“I can’t express how mentally low I was,” she said.
“This night I was feeling awful, it was a full moon and I went for a walk on the beach, I could barely walk a mile.
“I went on the computer really late and you couldn’t write (what happened next).
“I accidentally clicked on a tab with the Cape Wrath marathon and there was one place left,” she recalled.
“I booked it there and then, and I messaged an amazing friend of mine who has trained me for half marathons.
“I said ‘I can’t even run a mile, but we’ve got until May and I want to run 26’.
“I remember I messaged somebody else who said ‘what if you fail?’ and that just lit this fire in me.
“If we all thought like that, we’d never do anything.”
‘Life changing moment’
Lynn stuck to her word and completed the marathon, finishing in Sandwood Bay, in the very far north-west, where she now works as a ranger to protect the area’s wildlife.
“I felt so free of my own imprisonment,” she said.
“Wild places mean so much to me because they don’t judge you, you’re completely free of societal expectation.
“I’d freed all expectations because I’d exceeded them, it really was a life changing moment,” she added.
For information and support regarding Lyme disease, visit Lyme Disease UK’s website at lymediseaseuk.com
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