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Lyme support group to highlight family, friends
The disease can affect them just as much as it does the sufferers
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The area-wide Lyme Support Group plans to highlight the honorable and necessary role of family and friends in the lives of those afflicted with Lyme and/or other tick borne diseases (TBI).

Come Sept. 27 to the meeting room of the Hillsboro Public Library, 819 High Ave., Hillsboro, from 6:30-8 p.m.

Spouses, children, friends, and all interested persons are welcome to attend as we honor those so necessary in our lives. Come merely to glean helpful information, or to share your thoughts and experiences about living with Tick Borne Illnesses (TBI). Your lives are as deeply affected by TBI as are ours.

TBI is a personal affliction. When the bacteria or amoeba enters someone’s system through an insect bite, that individual becomes physically ill. If TBI is not treated quickly, the illness often becomes chronic, radically causing a deterioration of one’s health, physical abilities, and independence.

But TBI is also a family affliction. The spouse, the child, the family, or even the caring friend of a TBI sufferer also begins to suffer from the loved one’s illness. That one whose mutual care has such a benefit up to the point of his/her illness, may for a while, perhaps a long while, become the one whose burdens must be borne by those who love the TBI individual.

The physical demands of giving so much care may and do wear down the caregiver to some degree, perhaps greatly. Inner tensions may build, fed by feelings of loneliness, uncertainty about the future, lack of support, loss of personal time, neglect of spiritual nourishment - you, the reader, can think of many more.

Just as the person infected with a TBI needs help, even so does the spouse, child, family, and caring friend. The problems you face in caring for a TBI sufferer are not unique to you. Our support group meets to provide a resource for all those afflicted by TBI.

For more information,  email garycepek@yahoo.com, or phone 608/489-2725 (ask for Gary).