Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Reawakening on Turtle Island


   I haven’t felt this good in years it seems. It’s like coming out of a fog that I’ve been lost in, returning to the familiar, coming back home.

   It’s like reawakening from a series of long nightmares in which I couldn’t walk without pain and I could only stutter as I tried to speak thoughts I couldn’t complete. I’d wake up already tired, sometimes soaked in sweat and shaking, vision blurry, a ringing in my ears.

   There’s times I wished I wouldn’t wake up at all, just to put an end to it, to be done with the depression and fear, every physical pain, the constant headache and confusion – every the symptom you read about people experiencing untreated Lyme Disease (or Chronic Lyme or Post-treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome” (PTLDS)  - except that Bell’s Palsy that affects the muscles of the face.

   You might see some evidence of that battle on these electronic pages, where words of my own appeared less and less, some posts just a series of photos. I’ve got a hundred drafts I started and never finished, some of which I don’t remember writing...

   Is it over? I don’t know. There’s more tests to come and possibly further treatments in the near future. Permanent damage? I don’t know – I can walk pain free now, I can read and the words make sense, and I’m not afraid when the wind blows in the trees – don’t have to close the curtains and hide inside the house. It might be two years I've been carrying this around - it could be as much as twenty my doctor tells me - there's no way to really know.
   The only disappointment is the time lost that I’ll never get back - and the realization that the results of the last Presidential Election aren’t a delusion. I deeply regret what I've put my family through, becoming some sort of stranger prone to anger and letting them down with all I could not do for them...

  So here I am, writing for the first time in a long time, Reawakening on Turtle Island – and, as both my wife and Kris Kristofferson’s wife say: “The son of a bitch is back.”



8 comments:

  1. May you enjoy many, many more years of good health and joyous living.

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  2. Tim, Are you being treated for Lyme Disease now, or has it gone away? Me, and maybe others, would like to know more about what happened. Take care, Tommy.

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  3. Tommy: At the beginning of May this year, I began taking Doxycycline for Lyme Disease. Now, a month plus later, I'm feeling better than I have for years. That little tick came from a mouse or a dog or a deer, maybe inside my house, maybe following a deer trail to some stone site - I'll never really know...

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  4. Good luck. I had it for only a week and the residue took months to clear my body (if it is all gone yet).

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  5. Peter: Thanks! I remember the posts where you mentioned being "lucky" to catch the disease early...

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  6. I admire your writing and information. And look forward to more of your observations. I'm a new fan from mid-coast Maine - Glad you're feeling better.

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  7. Twenty three years ago I struggled to survive 18 months of un - diagnosed, and therefore untreated Lyme. After treatment? Is it over? I don't know either, but am grateful to be walking in the woods. I am pleased to hear that you are able to post again.

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