Ruth Ann Tobin

Obituary: Ruth Ann Tobin / A founder of Lyme disease support group Friday, October 29, 2004 By Bob Batz Jr., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Ruth Ann Tobin, who turned her own battle with Lyme disease into a support group that has helped many others, died Monday of cancer at her home in Lawrenceville. She was 71. It was after a 1989 church trip to the Catskills that Mrs. Tobin was diagnosed with Lyme, a confounding and controversial disease that was first linked to tick bites in Lyme, Conn., in the mid-1970s. Six months after her treatment, she relapsed, and then took antibiotics for four years to recover. Around 1990, she helped found the Pittsburgh Lyme Disease Support Group, and continued to meet with it monthly, every second Monday, at Calvert Memorial Presbyterian Church in Etna. She was outspoken about Lyme, which she believed was underdiagnosed and undertreated. As she told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1995: "What worries me is that the doctors in this area seem to be so uninformed about this disease. There's no excuse for that ignorance in this big of a city." Tammy Burleson, of Elizabeth Township, says Mrs. Tobin was so tell-it-like-it-is she was "a little scared" of her when she joined the support group in the early 1990s. But with characteristic kindness and dedication, Mrs. Tobin helped her get information and find doctors, and later helped her start the South Hills support group that Burleson still leads. She describes her mentor as "very accepting and very knowledgeable," adding, "She's going to be greatly missed, not only by her friends and family, but by the Lyme community as a whole." Mrs. Tobin had worked as a payroll clerk for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, and then was an active traveler with the Arsenal chapter of AARP. After she was diagnosed with cancer, she was a regular in the dance and movement group at the Cancer Caring Center in Bloomfield. "She had tons of energy," said her daughter, Janet Hodnik of McCandless, who said that until recently she had continued to help people with Lyme disease. "She spent a great deal of time on the telephone, even when she was ill with cancer," Hodnik said. Mrs. Tobin also is survived by her husband, Robert; two sons, Robert, of Shaler, and Daniel, of Lawrenceville; and eight grandchildren. Friends will be received from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. today in the Daniel T. D'Alessandro Funeral Home, Butler and 46th streets, Lawrenceville. A Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. tomorrow in St. Mary Church in Lawrenceville. (Bob Batz Jr. can be reached at bbatz@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1930.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posts: 3991 | From: Ohio | Registered: Jan 2002 | IP: Logged cbb Frequent Contributor Member # 788 posted 30 October, 2004 10:50 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What a sad story. This lady will really be missed by so many people. Condolences to her family and friends. Lou, concerning Lyme & cancer - The following is a quote from the tapes of the Lyme Disease Foundation's IX Annual Lyme Conference in 1996: David H. Persing, M.D., Ph.D. said "We are beginning to recognize some important associations between chronic infections and development of cancers in humans." In my opinion, this is where a lot of research money should be going. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posts: 4112 | From: South Carolina | Registered: Mar 2001 | IP: Logged