Lessons in Lyme

I have learned it is clearly nieve to think that healing from Lyme is just about restoring your health.  This disease poses so many hurdles that unfortunately it is much more than just getting your body better.   I think it is the same for most challenges in life.  It is never as simple as it appears on the outside, it is harder that it looks to others and no one knows what each if us is really experiencing.  It has been good to acknowledge that for myself and for others as well.  But the real trick is to acknowledge that and move on, not to use it as an excuse.  So that I will do.

When I was really sick I remember thinking whatever this is it has literally impacted every part of my body and every system it operates.  After being diagnosed I started to realize that it not only impacts every part of you, it impacts every part of your life.  And in healing I have come to realize it impacts even much more.  It is impacts you physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, financially, politically, career, family, future...it simply impacts who you are and the legacy you want to leave.

Recent challenges that go much beyond on my health have demonstrated that I have a long way to go to full healing and that the ramifications will be lasting. I can allow these challenges to jade me, wear me down or scar me.  Or I can take  each one, deal with it and learn so that I may help myself and others.  To do that I must take the lesson for each battle and find what is good in.  So that is what I plan to do because here is what I have learned:

1) Everyone is battling something and if we can do anything to help one another it is to share in the pain, share in the healing and simply support one another regardless of what the struggle might be.

2) Because Lyme eluded myself and doctors for so long, I have potentially been sick with many illnesses and tried every trick in the book.  If anything, I have a sense of what we can do as individuals to heal and more importantly, what works and what doesn't.


3) When you body is as weak as mine was, it is very sensitive or receptive to everything you do, good and bad.  It gives a very true sense fo what impacts our body and how some things, like stress (that are often hard to realize) are doing much more damage than we can imagine.


4) That if I can take all that this disease is teaching me and share it, I may not only help someone else, I can remind myself that there is purpose in all bad that happens and keep moving closer to full recovery.

So although, I have come a long way, I still have a long way to go.  Progress is so slow and minuscule that I cannot reflect by days or weeks, I need to reflect in months, to see how far I have come. And I have come a long way.  Full recovery is my goal so I have no plans to stop here.

So instead of providing updates on my recovery, my status and what symptoms persist,  I have decided to turn this whole thing around.  I am going to share what I have learned, especially all the things I plan to forever implement in my life as a result.  If people can take something from it then great, but for me it will help me focus on the end goal of health, not where things stand right now.  It will also hopefully distract me from al the small hurdles that seem to accompany this process.

So my next updates will be what I will refer to as Lessons in Lyme.  I hope people will find value in them. Some of them have changed my life forever.  Lyme has changed my life forever, but I am determined to prove that it was for the better.  I have to believe the purpose in all of this is much more profound than the challenges, or I would give up.  I am choosing the road that is longer, slower, rougher and harder, but I believe that at the end is health and no one is going to cut that journey short.  No one is going to convince me to take what appears to be the easier route.  No one is going to convince me that I am not going to get there.  I have a way to go before I can get there.  But I will not stop my conversation here until I get there.    I will not stop until I get there.