The annual number of Lyme disease cases has more than doubled since 1991. With last winter especially wet with snow, the conditions are ripe for the deer-tick tally to soar, warns the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Now through August is the time for extra caution, according to Dr. Dora Anne Mills, agency director. The best defense? Wear long-sleeved shirts and pants when going into wooded areas or areas with thick grass or brush piles.

Sometimes, ticks are tough to avoid.

Linda Chapman was vacationing in just such an area 20 years ago when she came in contact with a deer tick that radically changed her life. Chapman, 55, had to quit her job with the U.S. Postal Service, and suffered terribly for years afterward.

She contracted Lyme disease.

"My husband, John, and I had gone on vacation in Vermont," Chapman recalled. "I came back with what I thought was a spider bite. I had that bull's-eye rash, and by the time I got treatment two or three years later, it was too late."

The tick bite took six years to affect her health, she said.

"I really didn't feel sick and I forgot about it. Then I came down with bad joint pain. I had memory problems, and heart problems. I literally collapsed. I had to quit my job."

John Chapman then remembered she had been bitten. His wife had diagnostic tests that confirmed Lyme disease.

Antibiotics were not working.

"I was so sick," she said. "I was down to 96 pounds. I was just too weak to fight for myself. I knew it was going to be up to God whether I lived or died."

Losing hope, Chapman had a chance meeting two years ago with a pastor from Kenya who was touring area churches.

"He prayed over me, and I'm a lot better than I was," she said. "I needed a miracle."

Today, Chapman is back up to 133 pounds. But the disease still worked its poison. She still has problems with fatigue and some joint pain, and has not gone back to work.

Living on a rural road, Chapman is vigilant now regarding ticks.

"I just came home with one on me the other day, and I got rid of him right away," she said. "It's something that everyone should learn about."

Ticks aren't fussy about the source of the blood the live on.

Eddie Pearl, who lives on Messalonskee Lake in Oakland, says he has taken ticks off his cat several times.

Pearl said the ticks he has seen on his cat were larger than deer ticks.

"It was kind of a bump on the cat's neck," he said.

"I combed it with a flea comb and saw the tick. I have in the last couple of years taken at least a half dozen ticks off Maxie."

Pearl said his cat probably comes in contact with the ticks when it meanders around the growth along the lake.

"The tick was engorged (with) blood," he said. "They live by sucking blood off animals and people."

Steve Diaz, vice president of medical administration at MaineGeneral Medical Center, urges people to be careful about going off the beaten path. "The mantra is, 'Do tick checks daily,' " Diaz said. "The tick has to be on you for 24 hours to have an effect. Do a tick check before you go to bed."

Diaz added that there are more people coming into the emergency room with ticks now. "With all the press out there on this, people must just be more educated," he said.

Larry Grard -- 474-9534, Ext. 343

lgrard@centralmaine.com