Lyme disease robbed Jackie Zani of her high school years, but not her spirit

 Throughout the 2009-2010 academic year, the Northeast-10 and its member institutions will be featuring student-athletes across the conference in the brand new ‘Student-Athlete Spotlight’ section on the Northeast-10 website. Our second installment, submitted by University of Massachusetts Lowell's Director of Athletic Media Relations Chris O'Donnell, features women’s soccer player Jackie Zani.


By Chris O'Donnell, UMass Lowell


Do not ask Jackie Zani about her high school years. Until a month or two into her senior year, she doesn’t remember much of them.

There were no Friday night football games. No banter in the hallways, cafeteria, library. No senior prom.

Zani was home-schooled all four years of high school. Not because she wanted to be. She didn’t have a choice.

A sophomore on UMass Lowell’s women’s soccer team, Zani used to suffer from Lyme disease, so badly that she was having trouble remembering things. She couldn’t make it through a day of school without needing a two-hour nap.

“I always used to say that I felt like a 70-year-old in a 14-year-old’s body,” Zani said.

Today, the 5-foot-9 Zani moves effortlessly on the field, warming up with a session of long ball with a teammate before UMass Lowell’s clash with Saint Anselm. She goes through the warm-up without the faintest trace of pain or fatigue.

‘We lived in the woods’

Zani, 19, is one of five siblings, the second oldest of three daughters, of Mark and Kathy Zani. Her older sister Madolyn, 20, a violinist and pianist currently attending The Berklee School of Music; Carolyn, 17, is an accomplished ballerina. Younger brothers Matthew, 15, and Andrew, 14, are in high school.

Matthew is following his older sister’s lead: he is a sophomore starting on the Salem H.S. boys soccer team. Father, Mark, is an engineer while Kathy has devoted her life to home schooling her children.

Lyme disease has run rampant through each of them.
The Zani family used to live in a secluded, heavily-wooded area of Derry, NH, before moving to Salem when Jackie was in fifth grade.

“Living (in Derry), we would get bug bites all the time,” Zani explained. “We didn’t know you could get Lyme disease.”

It is estimated that only one of every 10 cases of Lyme disease is reported. It attacks in many forms: flu-like symptoms, joint pain similar to arthritis, chronic fatigue, neurological problems, depression, all caused by the bite of a tick.

When detected early, antibiotics can eliminate it within a month. But left untreated, it will ravage the body.
Shortly after moving to Salem, each of the Zanis came down with several of the aforementioned symptoms. Too many times Jackie was told she had the flu, a virus, mononucleosis; that she was making excuses, she wasn’t getting enough sleep.

“I couldn’t retain any information,” Zani said. “I had to walk around with an intravenous pick line in my arm, which was sort of embarrassing. I tried to play soccer with it, and it kept falling out. It was a huge, frustrating process. I was always changing medications.”
One by one, Kathy Zani removed each of her children from the Salem school system and decided to home school each of them.

“I was pulled out last because I am such a social person,” Zani explained. “So I waited until I couldn’t do it anymore.”

The Zanis eventually found Dr. Charles Ray Jones, considered the world’s foremost expert on Lyme disease in children, in New Haven, CT. Every three months the Zanis would pile in the car and make the two-plus hour trip.
Zani spent six years on a plethora of antibiotics.

“There is some controversy with (Dr. Jones),” Zani explained. “No doctors think Lyme disease should be treated the way I was treated, with long-term antibiotics. But he has treated so many kids with so much success.

“If Dr. Jones was in Florida, we’d have flown to Florida every three months,” Zani added. “He has people flying in from everywhere to see him.”

Though she had started antibiotics, Zani’s condition seemed to worsen, which is a common effect in the early stages. “You get worse because your body is responding to the treatment,” she noted.

Finding Refuge in Soccer

The joint pain was Zani’s worst symptom, coupled with the fatigue and, she admits, a void caused by the transition from high school to home school. Friends began to fall by the wayside, for no other reason than she wasn’t a student at Salem H.S.

“I had no energy to socialize,” she said. “A lot of them didn’t understand what I was going through.”

But the one part of her life she would not relinquish was soccer. Before her diagnosis, she said, she was coming into her own, evolving into a very good player. After starting treatment, however, it was as if she lost all her ability.

Still, Zani pressed on. Playing soccer was her way of fighting back against the disease. She played through the pain in her joints, often with an IV in her arm.

She played varsity all four years at Salem H.S. and also in the Greater Boston Bolts club system for former Revolution/Chicago Fire defender Francis Okaroh.

“The joint pain was overwhelming, but I just had to live with it,” Zani said. ” Dr. Jones would touch every one of my joints and I would cringe every time. That continued for a few years.”

Zani was able to play all 90 minutes nearly every match. She opened her senior season with a hat trick in a 6-3 win over Trinity H.S. Outside of practices and games, she tried to run as much as she could alongside her father, an accomplished runner. She would take naps before and after every match.

“Usually, it was right to bed after every game,” she quipped. “I really should not have played with the pain in my joints and the IV in my arm. But looking back, it was the only way I could express myself.”

Behind first-year coach Kendrick Whittle, Salem posted a 6-10-1 record Zani’s senior year in 2007, and advanced to the Class L state tournament for the first time in several years. Zani was named to the Class L all-star team.

Turning Heads

It was with the Bolts that UMass Lowell head coach Elie Monteiro noticed a tall, blonde athletic defender, a senior-to-be, that he envisioned on the River Hawks’ back line.

“I thought she was physical, fast and comfortable with both feet,” said Monteiro. “You don’t find a lot of players like that at our level.”

But what impressed Monteiro the most was the fact that Zani was educated at home.

“To have that level of discipline with all the distractions of being home, that impressed me big-time,” he said. “Jackie is very different from kids her age. She has layers and layers. She has been through a lot. The more I talked to her, the more I wanted her at UMass Lowell.”

As a freshman, Zani appeared in 12 matches with two starts as a freshman. She scored her first collegiate goal in a 4-0 win at American International.

She has missed five of the River Hawks first six matches this season recovering from an injury, but is expected to find a place in UMass Lowell’s defense, made up of three seniors and two juniors.

Zani is dual majoring in philosophy/communication and English, and currently has a 3.33 grade point average after one year.

“I love writing and I feel that I am pretty good at it, so I decided to study it,” she said. “I did a lot of journaling when I was sick.”

Zani, as well as brother Matthew and her two sisters, has been Lyme-free for two and a half years. Her parents still suffer from it, as does younger brother Andrew, but each is able to function.

“I missed out on a lot of the high school experience,” Zani said. “I look back and I can’t even put myself in my own shoes. It was a huge fog. I feel like I lost three years of my memory.

“In a way, I feel thankful,” she added. “Because I had to go through that, I feel like I am mentally tough. And I’ve been surrounded with a lot of good people in my life that I am blessed to have.”

The Fog has completely lifted.