“Out of the Woods” book author Katina Makris discusses her long road to wellness.

Battling ticks, Lyme disease

Katina Makris says she refused to be an invalid.

In the summer of 2000, Makris, known to her friends and family as Kim, was 42 years old, living in Peterborough, married with two young children. She was in great health, so what felt like a simple, summertime flu didn’t cause her great concern. But she didn’t recover quickly, in fact, less than a week later she needed help just to walk across a room.

“I saw a doctor and my white blood cell count was very high,” Makris recalled recently at her Peterborough home. “I went on antibiotics, but just got even more sick. I had violent headaches, heart palpitations.”

Makris didn’t know it at the time, but she was beginning a 10-year struggle with Lyme disease, a little-known illness at the time that has since become fairly widespread in New Hampshire. Now fully recovered, she’s telling her story in a book published last fall titled “Out of the Woods,” and spreading the word on the disease and options for treatment.

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