Photo Caption: Jamie Vandertoorn with daughter Charlotte.
After her daughter, Charlotte, developed a bulls-eye rash, which is a telltale sign of an infectious tick bite, Jamie Vandertoorn scheduled a visit with St. Luke’s pediatrician Eugenie de Ocejo, MD.
Dr. de Ocejo prescribed doxycycline, the antibiotic that is the time-tested standard of care for Lyme disease — and that’s where this story should have ended.
Charlotte’s condition, however, took a sudden, unexpected turn. She developed nausea, severe fatigue, vomiting and a sensitivity to light.
Fortunately, Dr. de Ocejo recognized the light sensitivity as an important clue, and she directed the Vandertoorns to head to The Isaacman Family St. Luke’s Children’s ER, which is part of St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital at the Bethlehem Campus.
The Children’s ER team, briefed by Dr. de Ocejo and led by Michael Witt, MD, wasted no time. They performed a CT scan, multiple blood tests and a lumbar puncture on Charlotte, which helped to alleviate pressure in her head.
By the time they were done, Charlotte had a new diagnosis that a less astute care team might have missed: doxycycline-induced pseudotumor cerebri, an incredibly rare and potentially fatal adverse reaction to the medicine that was supposed to help her.
“As soon as they took the fluid off and she woke up from sedation, she was like a whole new kid. We were able to go home,” said Jamie, who lives with her family in Cresco in Barrett Township, Monroe County.
While Charlotte has been cleared to return to normal activities, she continues to take medication for Lyme disease and ongoing intracranial pressure. Jamie is well aware that it could have turned out much, much worse.
“I was just really, really impressed with how” Drs. de Ocejo and Witt worked together to figure out what was going on, she said. “Overall, between the two of them, it was a really great experience.”
About St. Luke’s
Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network with annual net revenue of more than $4.5 billion. With 23,000+ employees at 16 hospital campuses and 350+ outpatient sites, it is the Lehigh Valley’s biggest employer.
The Network’s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital is based at the Bethlehem Campus.
Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only four-year medical school. It also operates the nation’s oldest continuously operated School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 60+ fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 550+ residents and fellows. Additionally, the St. Luke’s College of Health Sciences opened in 2026.
In a 2025 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, St. Luke’s received the highest quality score of the nation’s recognized three highest performing health systems. This objective recognition, based on public data reported to the government, reaffirms St. Luke’s preeminent position as THE BEST OF THE BEST among the most respected health care systems in the United States.
St. Luke’s has been named a Leapfrog Group Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. In 2026, all of the Network’s eligible hospital campuses were awarded Medicare’s highest ratings for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction. The Network also earned straight A’s for safety from Leapfrog across all of its acute care hospitals. It has earned 100 Top Hospital designations from Premier 12 years in a row, including in 2026 when the Network was identified as THE #1 MEDIUM-SIZE HEALTH SYSTEM IN THE COUNTRY. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.
Information provided to TVL by:
Sam Kennedy
