On Acceptance

Lyme disease reared its ugly head in my life way back in July. Nine months ago. I made sure that I brushed the night sweats and daily fevers off as ‘just fighting off a cold’ or “that nasty flu that is going around.” I ignored the fact that I was blowing off more and more commitments because of fatigue, always promising to reschedule things to some vague time in a two weeks or so when I was sure that I would be feeling so much better and have more time.

It took the past three weeks of intense sore throats, disorientation and not being able to get out of bed again for me to admit that what is going on, that what has been going on, is a recurrence of the disease that has shaped my life.

The past few months I have been unduly harsh to the people around me as I have been filled with fury and flipping between rage and depression as I’ve become less and less able at keeping on top of my life. I felt like I was fraying at the seams and stumbling to get to work. Finally, last Friday, I admitted to myself that I was experiencing a recurrence of Lyme Disease, that it wouldn’t pass just by waiting it out, that I haven’t been sick with the ‘never ending flu,’ as I had begun to refer to it.

I'd gone in to see Matt again, for an MAT session, and he asked how my body was doing.

"Well," I said, "it hurts. But I don't think that it's injury but a Lyme flare-up."

"What does a Lyme flare-up look like," he asked me.

"Weird muscular pain and achy joints and just feeling like I am about to get the flu."

"And how long does a flare-up last?"

"Oh, a few weeks," I said, but as I said it, I realized that I'd been complaining about these symptoms since the holidays. No, since the end of summer. Since I started a fellowship back in July. Oh shit. I'd managed to completely ignore that the sum of the symptoms I'd been experiencing was Lyme.

Once I’d admitted to myself and accepted that I was dealing with Lyme Disease again, I began making different choices out of respect for where I am, health wise, and what I need to do to get better. I have different expectations for myself and have begun to treat myself gently instead of forcing myself to get it all done, right now, no matter how I feel. I reached out to family and friends. Since acceptance, I’ve become quiet, gentle and patient. There is a sense of ease to my days that didn’t exist when I was denying that I was sick.

It was incredibly difficult for me to come to this point of acceptance and I only did when I had become so sick that there was no denying it anymore. I lost almost everything of myself in my first go-around with Lyme’s that I would much prefer to deny that it’s never gone away than to deal with it.