Life and Lyme

Muddling Through Life with Lyme Disease

The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.

Joseph Conrad

  • I watch over myself like the guardian of a high-powered executive. Although the pay sucks and I\’m anything but high-powered, I like to think I\’m a pretty good gatekeeper. So I hoard my energy, get my rest, take the various drugs/herbs/supplements that are working at the moment, take care of the everyday tasks to be…

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  • I have had some vivid, amazing dreams lately. Animals visit me regularly in these dreams. So far, I\’ve had dreams with turtles, snakes, elephants, bees, cats, frogs, and dogs. At first, I just bored Katie with retellings of these dreams. Her advice was to look up the \’meaning\’ of the dreams. Well, I did. Let…

    Read more: dreaming

  • Is there a word for female curmudgeon? The formal definition is a \”bad-tempered person, especially an old one\” and is unisex. I\’m not one yet, but I\’ve been flirting with the possibilities of allowing myself the luxury. This would require energy, maybe more energy than the daily decision to find something good about the day.…

    Read more: curmudgeon

  • I railroaded my dad into letting me move in with him this past September. It seemed like a good time with COVID and lockdowns and my continued journey with chronic Lyme. The original plan was to sell my house, move in with dad for a while, and later on, move to Costa Rica. Then came…

    Read more: resettling

  • There is truth to the adage Johnny Depp quoted in \”Pirates of the Caribbean\”: \”Crazy people don\’t know they\’re crazy\”. Whenever Lyme is flaring up, I am always slow to realize it\’s happening. The first signs are the same. Aches and pains, headaches, a heavy fatigue, and a brain that skips and skitters. Obviously I…

    Read more: One of those days

  • I stopped baking almost twenty years ago, after I stopped eating gluten and dairy. Katie wasn\’t big into most baked goods back then and I didn\’t need the sugar, fat, and calories. After I got Lyme disease, these foods were inflammatory, something else I didn\’t need. I got used to not eating any sweets and…

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  • Forgive me if I don\’t have much sympathy for your quarantine woes. Unless you are trapped in an untenable, dangerous situation, it\’s not that bad.  After five plus years with Lyme, I have had to self-quarantine off and on, sometimes for months. Not for the same reasons, nor in the same way, but the idea…

    Read more: Quarantine

  • There\’s a difference between quarantined and sequestered. Quarantined means YOU have the illness. Sequestered means I DON\’T WANT THE ILLNESS. I\’m back to where I was three years ago: stuck at home being sick. Bartonella, one of my co-infections, is the bane of my existence. Borrelia burdorferi and babesia have been contained (not eradicated, contained). Not Bartonella. It continues to rage…

    Read more: sequestered

  • I\’ve been thinking about suicide a lot lately. Wait, don\’t panic! Not in a real way, but in a Lyme way. There is a difference, and it is significant. Psychiatric problems from Lyme are well-documented and common. After all, there are, quite literally, bugs in your brain, wreaking havoc. So when I say I think about suicide,…

    Read more: mental

  • I can always tell when I\’m feeling better. First sign is a manic frenzy to get my life \”back on track\”. I play catch-up and start to think about the future. That instantly brings on depression, anxiety and panic, so I try to balance it out by watching romcoms. I like romantic comedies. A LOT.…

    Read more: RomComs

  • I been holed up lately, because there\’s not much to say right now. Yes, I\’m still sick. No, I don\’t know if I\’ll ever be completely well. No, there\’s really no clear path or prognosis for me. Yes, it sucks. The uncertainty and grind of being sick for so long has started to wear me…

    Read more: Stalled

  • I used to think I wasn\’t a fearful person. Armed with statistics and a healthy lifestyle, illness and accidents were part of a lottery I thought I had little chance of winning. Then I was bitten by a tick. Now I see that I had plenty of fears, I just didn\’t admit to them. Except…

    Read more: Fears

  • I am bouncing back from a particularly shitty relapse. I\’m feeling overwhelmed and hopeless, like I can\’t manage my own life anymore. The worst part of this relapse and aftermath has been mental. If you haven\’t heard from me in a while, you are not alone. I prefer to be wiggy in private. To add…

    Read more: priorities

  • I discovered two things about myself the day Katie was born: I would die for another person, and I would kill for another person. That a love so fierce could spring up inside of me was a surprise I think no new parent can anticipate. I\’d been waiting for her my whole life. Why have…

    Read more: Katie

  • It has been almost six weeks since I began to seriously participate in my own life again. This sounds rather pathetic, but after three years of unrelenting illness, this is a major accomplishment. The problem is, what is my life? There is nothing, outside of staying in Denver, Katie, and my Dad, that is the…

    Read more: toil

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