Remembering Nate Watters
By: Sam Davis
Tags: Lyme, Lyme Disease Treatment, Grief And Loss, Lyme Disease

In early 2020, shortly after stopping steroids and starting Lyme protocols, Nate got worse. His mobility deteriorated, he kept losing weight, and he developed such acute insomnia that he’d remain awake for days at a time. We suspected that the steroids suppressed his immune system, leaving the active Lyme infection unchecked and able to fully disseminate throughout his body.

In late 2020, a doctor recommended a mold test, and the results showed high exposure in 4 out of the 5 most toxic molds. Lyme and mold infections are often diagnosed in tandem, but in Nate’s case, it was uncertain if one condition or the other or both were causing his symptoms.

In January 2021 Nate’s pinky started to die, and yes, it was as awful as it sounds. When he went to the ER we learned he had air escaping from his lungs as well. The doctors diagnosed this as pneumomediastinum, however, they could not detect the source by means of an x-ray, cat scan, and ultrasound. So after three days and dozens of bewildered doctors insisting “this isn’t what Lyme does to people, but we don’t know what is wrong with you,” Nate was sent home. By this point, Nate was obviously and visibly ill. He had lost most of the hair on his body and his head, he was extremely frail, and was unable to walk any distance on his own. He wasn’t able to absorb a sufficient amount of oxygen at the hospital for those three days, and was suffering immensely as a result. Nate was instructed to rest his lungs and just let the finger die. This was honestly where things felt the worst; nothing would ease the pain in his finger and he just had to suffer through it. Meanwhile, I could feel the air bubbles in his neck creeping up into his vocal cords, causing him to lose his voice periodically for months. The hand specialist seemed unbothered by his finger and assured us that when he was healthy enough, they would amputate. However, that time never came, as he was unable to have surgery, and his lungs never resolved.

As he continued to get more serious unresolving symptoms, “herx’s” that lasted for over a week and came out worse than before, we desperately sought to get him into the Cleveland Clinic, The Mayo Clinic, and even John Hopkins Lyme Disease Research Center. All of which refused to take him on. Citing they either don’t work with Lyme patients or that Nate’s condition wasn’t severe enough. I remember reading the letter from John Hopkins thinking if this isn’t enough what are other people with Lyme dealing with.

As 2021 went on, Nate got weaker and in almost every aspect of his being became unrecognizable, lost his long aggressive battle on June 5th. His initial cause of death was unclear however they revealed Nate was actually suffering from Pulmonary Fibrosis that wasn’t caught at his hospital. While I am not sure how we would have managed to know that Nate was in fact dealing with a fatal condition as a result of years with untreated Chronic Lyme. I do know he’d likely be alive today had he have been diagnosed properly in real-time, a common theme we experienced over the course of three long years.

In retrospect, I believe Nate was failed by the Lyme illiterate doctors who did not understand chronic Lyme and mold infections, and missed Nate’s diagnosis in the early days of his symptoms. He spent years fighting to simply be taken seriously, and prove he was sick, and lost years trying to find what was wrong while not getting the right treatment. In fact, his treatment exacerbated his condition. Looking back, Nate was infected by a tick bite in Moab, UT in 2014. Colorado and this region of the United States have little familiarity with Lyme, and next to no understanding of how to treat it, recognize it, and what it does when left untreated. To be honest, I didn’t know what Lyme disease was before this experience, nor did I know that the CDC doesn’t recognize it as a chronic condition. Now, due to that fact and the total lack of education around this disease, my 2-year-old son no longer has a father, I have lost the love of my life, and the world has lost an incredible and loving soul. He leaves behind a devastated family at the hands of a broken system.

My hope in sharing Nate’s story is to provide awareness in sharing some of these abnormal symptoms. To recap, his symptoms were extensive and included: Severe Raynaud’s (resulted in 50% of his left pinky finger necrotic), skin lesions on joints severe in hands, skin peeling on fingertips with inflammation, chronic fatigue, severe joint and muscle pain, severe inflammation in all joints and skin, depression, hair loss all over his body, flu-like symptoms, severe weight loss and muscle atrophy, pneumomediastinum.

These among many other symptoms can’t point to a Lyme-related infection. I urge anyone on the hunt for answers to really advocate for proper testing and doctors proficient with recognizing Lyme disease. The work on Nate’s behalf will not end until Chronic Lyme is a diagnosable disease, that doctors don’t push people like him off and that there is a clear path to recovery.