I have Lyme Disease. I have had it for a long time without knowing it, possibly for 13 years. Known as the "Great Imitator", Lyme has taken hostage my life with a series of near perfect "imitations". Looking back, I am angry. I am angry that despite the long laundry list of problems I have had, I have been told by medical professionals that I "have nothing to worry about." I am angry that I have been made to feel that I should accept this way of life. That I am unworthy of further consideration or investigation. That maybe I am just a huge fuck up and it is all my own fault. I am angry that I have spent 13 years struggling with various emotional, physical, and mental problems and feeling like this was just my lot in life. I am tired of feeling like this body of mine is not long for this world, that it is not a body worth inhabiting, that it is a body filled with bacteria that is killing its host; stealing bits and pieces of the only respite I had left, my brain. I am angry that this disease has been allowed to steal my ability to speak, spell, put words to paper, and remember things, and still, the controversy and politics continue.
Nearly a decade and a half have been stolen from me. My life has been written by the spirochetes inside me. I may never be well. Every moment I wonder what I could have been, who I could be, what I could have accomplished if I had had a fair shake; if I had, quite simply, just been healthy. I live with that regret, that grief, every moment.
What do I have to worry about?
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