Between February and May, Drew and his mother Cheri White, visited the doctors office 15 times in an effort to identify the cause of Drew’s unusual symptoms.

While the White family was searching for an answer, unbeknownst to them, another Enterprise family had a son who was struggling with the same illness.

Earlier this year, Liz Sipper was watching her 11-year-old son Hampton and his friends play the “Rock Band” video game when he suddenly turned to her and said, “my throat hurts so bad. I can’t swallow.”

Hampton’s sore throat soon grew into other more severe symptoms.

“He was in the bed from then on,” said Mrs. Sipper. Hampton and Drew’s symptoms were as varying as they were unpredictable.

Within a 20-day period Hampton went to the doctor eight times to rule out flu, strep, mononucleosis and an array of other infections.

“At the end of the 20-day period, they still didn’t know what it was,” said Mrs. Sipper.

The ideas and tests ranged from a spider bite to the White family’s worst fear of lymphoma, otherwise known as cancer of the lymph nodes.

Mrs. Sipper listed an astonishing amount of symptoms that are indicative of Lyme disease and what her son Hampton and Drew experienced including fatigue, skin sensitivity, fever, shooting pains, excessive thirst, loss of appetite, panic attacks, paranoia, anxiety, shakes, involuntary jerks, hearing noises that didn’t exist and severe emotional distress.

“It’s one of the most violent things I’ve ever witnessed as an illness,” said Mrs. Sipper. “I don’t think there’s anything that it doesn’t affect.”

With such a wide range of symptoms, the White and Sipper families could only wait as doctors searched for a diagnosis.

“I prayed to God to give me wisdom, because I was watching my child deteriorate and die, and I had nowhere to go for help,” said Mrs. Sipper. “The next morning, while I was getting ready, Lyme disease just came to my head out of thin air. I didn’t even know a symptom for Lyme disease.”

The diagnosis

While sharing their struggle with a family friend in Georgia, the Sippers were told about a Lyme disease expert in Destin. The phone call was made, and after only three days the test results were in. Hampton tested positive for Lyme disease on March 25.

Hampton was also tested for many co-infections associated with Lyme disease, and also tested positive for bartonella.

“Very rarely does any Lyme patient just luck up and get Lyme disease, they are going to get the other co-infections” said Mrs. Sipper. “They have to check you because that is key to your getting over the disease.”

If doctors don’t treat the co-infections, Mrs. Sipper said they can make a patient deathly ill.

While the Sippers felt a bit of relief in finding the source of their son’s sickness, the White’s search led them to Dr. David Rhyne.

After the many appointments and tests in search of answers, Rhyne tested Drew for Lyme disease. His test, too, came back positive.

“Thank God that he thought to test him for it, and was willing to learn about it,” said Mrs. White.

Rhyne said that in all his years as a doctor, he had never had a positive result come back for Lyme disease.

Once diagnosed, Drew’s mother said they were both overcome with relief.

“His first words, once he found out what it was, were ‘thank god,’” said Mrs. White. “You know, after a while you start thinking, ‘am I ever going to find out what is wrong with me?’ So Drew was happy. We had an answer, it was treatable and it wasn’t cancer.”

What is Lyme disease?

Lyme disease is an emerging infectious disease more commonly found in the northeastern part of the United States.

It is contracted through a bite from an infected deer tick in the nymphal, or young stage when the insects are found on smaller mammals like mice or raccoons.

Because of their small size, they are difficult to spot, with its hosts most times not even being aware that they had been bitten. Once bitten, the bacterial spirochetes multiply within human tissue causing the development of the Lyme disease symptoms.

Most cases are found in boys between the ages of 5 and 19 years old.

The first case of Lyme disease in Alabama was documented in 1986 in Lee County.

Since then, only a few cases have been documented by the Center for Disease Control each year in Alabama.

According to the CDC, in 2007, only 13 cases were reported in Alabama.

Mrs. White said that Drew did have a bite mark on his side that was thought to be a spider bite, but was not sure exactly where the bite came from.

Hampton, who is active in outdoor activities, including playing baseball, took his first hunting trip exactly one month before his symptoms began to show.

Mrs. Sipper said that it is normal for symptoms to be seen 30 days from the initial bite, and believes that Hampton had been bitten while hunting.

Shortly after Drew was diagnosed, his mother was introduced to Mrs. Sipper. The mothers began comparing stories and Mrs. Sipper encouraged Mrs. White to see Dr. Luke Lentz of Destin.

“Because of her, Drew got treatment sooner,” said Mrs. White of Mrs. Sipper.

After speaking with the doctor, she suggested that Rhyne speak with Lentz so that Drew could be treated in Enterprise.

Lentz instructed Rhyne on the treatment necessary for Drew’s symptoms.

A regimen of antibiotics is recommended in treating Lyme disease including Omnicef, Doxycycline and Azithromycin.

Coping with Lyme disease

Even though Drew was still struggling with pains and other symptoms, he was able to finish the remainder of his senior year at EHS and continue as a snare section leader in the EHS drumline.

Enterprise High School nurse, Renee Faust, sent an email to the faculty keeping them up-to-date on Drew’s condition. “She was awesome,” said Mrs. White. “This woman had been working with me since February. All his teachers knew to watch him.”

This was especially helpful in the couple times that Drew experienced paresthesia, which causes the limbs so go numb in a paralyzed-like state.

The “episodes” can occur out of nowhere, said Mrs. White, and the only way to stop them is to be moved from his location and calmed down.

“His friends were great also,” said Mrs. White adding that they were at his side during one of the attacks.

Because of the severity of Hampton’s symptoms, he could not return to school at Holly Hill Elementary. The antibiotics prescribed made his condition worse for more than three weeks before he began to show signs of improvement.

“What the medicine does is kill off the spirochetes. When the spirochetes die off they emit a toxin into your body that makes you more sick before you get better,” said Mrs. White. “Many times (Hampton) said, ‘I think I’m dying Mom, I don’t think I’m going to live through this. I feel like I’m at the end of my life,’ and I would say ‘no you’re not.’ My husband and I would pray with him every night, and try to give him comfort that he wasn’t going to die and that he was going to be fine,” Mrs. Sipper said.

For the last 10 weeks of the school year Hampton stayed home on the Homebound program.

Hampton said his teacher Suzi Mitchell and the other faculty and staff at Holly Hill were very understanding of his illness.

Mrs. Sipper said it is a blessing that Hampton’s class has already finished the 5th grade curriculum and were preparing for the SATs at the time he got sick.

Through his treatment over the 10 weeks, Hampton’s symptoms began to peel away like layers of an onion, saying that the pain was the first to go.

While at home, Hampton said that he was given many get-well cards and “Alabama stuff” that helped lift his spirits.

“I’m a huge Alabama fan,” said Hampton.

Today, Hampton said that he has been symptom free for six weeks and plans on returning to school and playing baseball again in August.

“I just take one day at a time” said Hampton. “The thing I have to say of being well is spending more time with family and not being in my room watching TV all day. Swimming and having a good time and being with my mom and being with my dad is the best thing out of everything.”

Mrs. White said Drew continues to be very strict about taking his antibiotics as directed so that his symptoms will weaken and hopefully disappear. “If you catch it early, its curable, if it’s not caught early then you can have long term symptoms,” said Mrs. White.

Drew will be attending Troy University in the fall pursuing a degree in criminal justice.

Mrs. White said that Drew has not shown signs of improvement yet, and is not sure when his symptoms will subside, but she and Drew are confident that the antibiotics will continue to combat with the infection.

“It takes aggressive, extended treatment to eradicate it, because you need to make sure you have killed (the spirochetes) before you stop,” said Mrs. Sipper.

Drew is also being tested for the many possible co-infections that can come along with a Lyme disease diagnosis.

Helping others

Mrs. Sipper, who is a person of faith, believes all things happen for a reason.

Her brother, Glenn Crumpler of Enterprise, had been ill for over 21 years without an accurate diagnosis.

It wasn’t until he learned of Hampton’s diagnosis that he decided to have a test for Lyme disease, which came back positive.

“It was through his illness that we found out what was wrong with him,” Mrs. Sipper said of her son’s correct diagnosis.

Mrs. Sipper believes that thousands of cases of Lyme disease could be in the Wiregrass, with many being misdiagnosed as Multiple Sclerosis or ALS syndrome known as Lou Gehrig’s syndrome.

“There are a lot of people sick and wondering what’s wrong with them, and they’ve got labels and they really have Lyme disease,” said Mrs. Sipper. “The medical community is not familiar with the fact that Lyme is in the area, and they’re taught that its not in the South.

“We don’t feel that we go through an experience for nothing. If we’ve been allowed to go through this then we need to come out and be able to help other people. An experience never shared, dies with the one who experienced it, but if we share it, it will live on and on and be able to help others.”

Photo: Hampton Sipper, and his mother Liz, share their struggle to find a diagnosis as Hampton’s health kept him away from school and his friends. (Photo by Laura Fezie)