Letters: Baseball and Lyme disease

This week's letters respond to a question about the best site to locate a stadium for a minor-league baseball team if Chester County should get a team, and about the continuing debate over the best way to treat Lyme disease.

I would like to nominate Phoenixville for the new location. Phoenixville is steeped in baseball history and has been a hotbed of youth baseball. Phoenixville High School was a perennial title-winner in baseball despite its lackluster records in some other sports.

The stadium would take a "brown site" (old steel mill) and replace it with a "green site."

The proposed location is downtown, which would attract sports fans and serve toward the revitalization of our town. Phoenixville is one of the hottest-growing communities in Chester County. Access from all of northern Chester County is readily available.

Placing the stadium downtown would give fans and novices a multitude of restaurants and shops, as well as a hometown feel. Safety, friendliness and comfortable feeling are all present in the borough of Phoenixville.

Spring City

The writer is a member of the committee that wants a stadium built in Phoenixville.

In response to your recent article on Lyme disease, I am very grateful for finding a "Lyme-literate" doctor. As a 49-year-old who has been in pain for more than 10 years, I suffered from many of the same symptoms mentioned in the story. I had headaches, neck pain, joint pain and sensitivity to light and noise. My previous doctor tried to find the problem through many tests and specialists, all with little relief.

At my first appointment with Dr. Peter Fabulian, after going through my history, he said, "You have Lyme's."

My response was, "I never had a bull's-eye rash." My blood was tested and the result was negative.

He insisted it was Lyme and had my blood tested again; it was positive for Lyme. I was placed on antibiotics, antifungals and more antibiotics. After 10-plus years I was feeling better. My blood was tested frequently and, if needed, I got more antibiotics.

Since the initial confirmed diagnosis I have also tested positive for Rocky Mountain spotted fever, another tick-borne disease.

Whether my doctor or the one who wrote the April 20 letter [Dr. Richard G. Fried, who criticized the approach of "Lyme-literate" physicians and their emphasis on antibiotics] has the right answer I don't know. I am no expert, just a grateful patient of a "Lyme-literate" doctor.

I am glad to see tick-borne diseases getting more media attention because I am sure there are many more suffering from these two diseases who do not get the proper testing or who think as I did that no bull's-eye means no Lyme.

West Grove