Annual "I Owe the Universe for Saving My Life, So Listen Up To My Tiresome Lecture":

I was sick, sicker, sickest for 15 months.  Missed several months of work.  The only reason I didn't lose my health insurance is because I had so much sick leave built up.
I had severe back/shoulder/neck pain (months in rehab as a result), severe vertigo (Thanksgiving Eve trip to ER followed by CT scan), bad heart palpitations (Memorial Day trip to ER followed by echocardigram testing), cognitive confusion,etc.  No one knew what was wrong.  Finally my rehab dr thought to test me for Lyme.  I now have permanent muscle damage but otherwise came through undamaged.  I got very, very, very lucky.
Don't just look for a bullseye bite.  Don't give up if you're getting more and more sick and no one knows what to do.  Insist on a Lyme test.  Get a second opinion of the first Lyme dr tells you 'well, too bad, nothing we can do for you now."
Deet up, worry about cancer later, check your dogs carefully.

consuelo, you are correct re doctors up here not having an adequate knowledge of Lyme diagnosis or treatment.  That was certainly my experience.  Thank God for Dr. Kevin Stephen at Duluth Clinic, who treated this aggressively, and successfully, with a six month course of antibiotic treatment.

Other local drs apparently haven't bothered to keep up with proper Lyme treatment.  So, go after those second opinions.  At least if you are like me, someone who had, and did not lose, her health insurance.  If you are someone like consuelo, with no health insurance and continued Lyme symptoms, then I feel a great deal of compassion and fear for you.

digit3, if that is directed at me, let me tell you that you are just plan, flat out wrong, and our local medical community is lucky that I didn't sue the shit out of them for egregious medical incompetence.

The problem is that physicians fall into two camps.  The first camp, as davids points out, simply rejects the idea that chronic, late stage Lyme can be treated.  Why?  Good question.  The other camp believes that chronic Lyme can be treated successfully, and Exhibit #1, Emmadogs, proves that point.

The local medical community should be ashamed that it took several doctors in Duluth Lyme Zone over a year, while I became close to disabled, before it occurred to one of them that a trail runner/hiker with a big hairy dog running partner might have been bitten by a tick!!!  And might have Lyme!!!  Who would have thought it!

And the local medical community should be ashamed of itself that my first infectious diseases doctor said "too bad so sad, nothing we can do for you now, ya just can't really treat late stage Lyme."

And the local medical community should be ashamed that it hasn't dropped everything and adequately reacquainted itself with the current research on Lyme, and/or visited with those in our local medical community who do actually know what they are doing: Thank you, Dr. Stephan for saving my life!

digit3, do I and consuelo and others feel angry and venomous about this?  You betcha.  And I can guarantee you would too, if you had been through this.  Go talk to someone who has permanent health damage because of some in our local medical community who did not do their job to heal.  You dig deeper, then come talk to me.

Thank you for venting.