Local man unknowingly bitten by tick contracts Rocky Mountain spotted fever
Brad Bishop’s symptoms started with a headache, one he described as the worst of his life. Within 24 hours, he was in CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System fighting for his life.
“He first got sick on a Saturday night (Sept. 8) and he’d had a very busy day,” said Teresa Bishop, Brad’s wife. “He either didn’t notice how sick he was or it really hit him all of a sudden. He came in that night with the worst headache he’d ever had and he kept saying his knees were hurting. By the next morning he was running fever, and he eventually started throwing up. It was just like he had the flu.”
His condition deteriorated quickly. “By Sunday, I got to shaking so bad. I told Teresa I had to do something, ” Brad said. “It was like someone was sticking a stake from my back all the way to front of my chest. I was hurting in the center of my chest.”
Teresa took him to HealthCARE Express Urgent Care clinic, where he was so sick he had to lie down in the waiting room
She fully expected to find out he had the flu, but his blood work showed a problem, and the doctor there sent him to the hospital thinking he might have a bowel obstruction.
“I was alarmed when I thought he might have to have surgery for bowel obstruction, but when they told us it wasn’t that, that’s when I got scared,” she said. “That night when he was still in the emergency room he started turning purple and having trouble breathing. He was in a lot of pain.”
Brad had sepsis, a life-threatening response the body has to infection that can lead to organ failure, tissue damage and death.
“The sepsis was messing with his organs, and the treatment was to rush fluids through him, but he couldn’t handle the fluid so he was going into heart failure,” Teresa said.
It was a terrifying time for the family. The mystery of what could be causing his illness made it even scarier.
After he stabilized, emergency room doctors sent him to a room, and that’s
when an infectious disease doctor was called in.
“They knew it was probably something mosquito- or tick-borne,” Teresa said. “They gave him three different antibiotics and an antiviral medication through his IV.”
Fortunately Brad started improving, though he was still having severe headaches when he left the hospital a week later.
The Bishops didn’t find out until Sept. 20, a week or so after he left the hospital, that Brad had been infected with Rocky Mountain spotted fever, the most common tick-borne illness in Arkansas.
“The strange thing was I hadn’t seen a tick on me,” Brad said.
But being bitten by a tick and not knowing it isn’t all that unusual, according to one state health official.
“For this particular disease, the tick needs to be on a person longer than 24 hours but (RMSF) can be transmitted in the nymph or larva stages,” said Dr. Laura Rothseldt, state public health veterinarian for the Arkansas Department of Health. “A lot of times people will not see these ticks because they are so small, almost microscopic. They’ll do their feeding, transmit the disease and then fall off once they’re done feeding.”
RMSF is more common in the northwest part of Arkansas, but it’s no surprise to hear of cases all over the state.
“We have it very prevalent in Arkansas,” Rothseldt said. “It’s a bacteria carried by ticks, and we actually think there are several bacteria involved.”
Brad’s symptoms, though severe, are about what someone who’s been infected can expect.
“It can start with sometime flu-like illness that may begin with fever and not feeling good. You can have headaches and it may or may not progress into a rash. It can be very serious if not treated, but a lot of people are exposed to it and don’t really get ill with it,” Rothseldt said.
Brad is back to work at Cooper Tire & Rubber Co., and has mostly recovered from his illness.
Teresa is thankful for the providers at HealthCARE Express and St. Michael,
whom she credits with saving her husband’s life, along with many prayer warriors.
“I know, without a doubt, God was in control. The nurse practitioner could have given him Tamiflu and sent him home. She sent him to the hospital instead. I know he would’ve died at home that night, so I know God was in control every minute of every step,” Teresa said.
For more information about Rocky Mountain spotted fever and other tickborne illnesses, visit healthy.arkansas. gov.