COLLIE resident Jill Willis is looking out for Lyme Disease sufferers in town.
Mrs Willis was diagnosed with Lyme Disease in 2013.
“One of the bacteria is a spirochete, a spiral, and it bores into every bone in your body,” she said.
“My teeth ached for maybe ten years before I was diagnosed, they all ached at once so you knew there was something other than bad teeth.
“I used to have ice-pick pains in my head and they would drop me on the ground it would just be instant, and that is quite common because whatever the bacteria is doing in my head is actually hitting a nerve or upsetting the neurological path.”
Mrs Willis said she has now felt the disease’s effects for over 20 years.
She said she had been bed-ridden for two and a half years after her diagnosis.
“I would get out of bed, have a shower, go back to bed and it would take me all day to get over having the shower, so I don’t think I even got out of my pajamas for two and a half years,” she said.
“I dont want to go out anywhere, you’re afraid all the time, you’re afraid of everyone talking to you, you’re afraid of being caught in public having a seisure.”
Mrs Willis said symptoms also included memory loss, sores on the skin and fatigue.
She said, despite noticeable symptoms, Australian doctors and specialists have always been hesitant to diagnose patients with the disease.
“You go through neurologists, psychologists they all tell you you’re insane,” she said.
Mrs Willis said it took one year before she was able to see her specialist, Bicton GP Dr Hugh Derham.
She served as a lieutenant in the Australian Army for eight years.
She served at Fremantle’s Leeuwin Barracks before moving to Dunsborough in 2005 to supervise the South West army cadet units.
The Willis’s then moved to Collie in December 2015, now living and working on a farm in Allanson.
“I think the town is great, we haven’t had a lot of people – I think when you’re on a farm it’s quite difficult to actually meet people,” she said.
Mrs Willis recently took to Facebook to reach out to fellow sufferers in the community.
“A couple of weeks ago I said to Rob [husband]: “There are people out here, in Collie – and I know that there are because the specialist told me, he treats people in Collie – and I wonder if they need to just talk”,” she said.
“I thought I would put it out there and see if anyone is interested in just meeting for a coffee, maybe they do need to speak about things, maybe they are suicidal, don’t know what to do about it, can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
