I’m a Lyme Disease survivor. If that’s even the right word. I don’t talk about it much. I don’t consider it a part of my life. I was sick. I got well. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t fun. But it wasn’t the end of a decent life either.

Was I simply one of the lucky ones? In some ways, yes. In some ways, no. In short, I am well today. I don’t consider myself to be suffering from Lyme Disease in any way. And, no, it wasn’t because it was found fast so there could be a quick fix. I had chronic Lyme, it turned out, for two long years before finally getting the right answers and solutions.

That’s the short story. I decided to put it out because I’m seeing too much doom and gloom around Lyme Disease lately. People are in fear. And fear doesn’t help one damn thing. Fear is leading people to do things like slather themselves in DEET in an attempt to avoid ticks. Not so great. Avoid Lyme, potentially end up with some other damage to your body. I don’t use DEET. I don’t trust it being safe. I’m not trading off my good health for something that has the potential to hurt me. And, no, I sure as hell don’t want to be waylaid by another Lyme-carrying tick. But there are better, safer ways to do that. Natural bug repellents (yes, they’re effective against ticks) or something like almond oil with drops of geranium essential oil mixed in. It works for me.

That’s it in a nutshell. Here is the whole story, if you want, on how I went from seriously ill with Lyme to well:

One fall, I began to be sick. Like I had a nasty, nasty case of the flu. Exhausted, severe aches and pains. No respiratory signs, but, still, must be the flu, right? I didn’t over react. It’s the flu. I only started to wonder after I had the “flu” time after time after time. I’d recover, then I’d be right back to being ill. It got real old real fast.

So I made a doctor’s appointment. Nothing really found. And another. And another. And another. Blood tests and more. Nothing. I was getting sicker and sicker and … nothing. I felt like I must be a crazy person. Yet, I knew I’d rather do anything than be ill and that I wanted an answer … and to feel good again.

This went on for two years. Doctors looked for everything that might be causing the severe joint pain I was in along with the exhaustion and feeling sick and I-can’t-even-remember-what-all. All I remember is that I was in so much pain at times that it hurt too much to even lie in bed. Too much pressure on too many painful parts. When you can’t even relax to some degree in bed, the minutes tick by very slowly.

And I remembering thinking, “If this is my life now, and this is going to be my life forever, I’m not so sure I can do this.”

Two things happened that led me to answers. One, I was told I needed to go to Mayo so they perhaps could figure out what to do with me. I seriously didn’t want to be that ill. I didn’t want to be that person. I think I became open to any answer of any sort at that moment in time. Two, my wonderful nurse practitioner slipped me the business card of a holistic practitioner when I was in yet another time.“Cindy,” she whispered, “I can’t stand to watch you being so ill. Check this guy out. He’s good.”

I did. What did I have to lose? He asked me to tell him about every symptom and everything else that had occurred recently that might be relevant.

After going through his type of testing — twice — he told me I had Lyme Disease. Oh, crap, it made sense then. I had a tick on me — one lousy tick that hadn’t even embedded itself — the summer before I started getting the “flu” over and over. I never thought to tell him this so the bonus was that it gave me complete confidence in his findings. He wasn’t guessing. His testing was trustworthy. He knew.

I also looked up the symptoms of Lyme Disease when I got home. Yep, there I was. It’s a miserable disease. It’s hard to explain how ill you can feel in how many different ways. Nor do I want to spend much time going on about it. Been there, done that, over it.

I embarked on a journey of healing. Part was my holistic doc’s treatment  — vitamins, herbs, other supplements, homeopathic medicines. Part was changing my lifestyle so I had every possible chance of being well again. No sugar of any sort (real, artificial or even too much fruit), no caffeine, no alcohol, no being around any sort of cigarette smoke. I didn’t smoke, but this was in the days before no smoking was the norm everywhere so going out became complicated. There was more, but these were the biggest changes. The overall theme was I needed to do every last thing possible to allow my body to focus on fighting off Lyme, not have to work to repair damage, even if it’s minimal, from other things.

Six months later, I was well again. Oh, it was a rocky six months. Like a roller coaster. Better, then worse. It came in waves. It was like thinking Lyme is pretty much gone, then it grows a new head. But then better more and more became the norm, and I was well. Truly well. And done with Lyme.

So, yes, Virginia, there is life after Lyme. It’s not a disease you want, that’s for sure. But there is help out there. You might just have to open your mind more and look more intensively. If I found it, so can you.

Lyme is not a death sentence. Or, well, it doesn’t have to be. I know it seems like it might as well be for some who haven’t gotten the treatment and the knowledge that I thankfully did. That means you keep looking. Keep trying. And keep doing your part to give as much wellness to your body as you can. Even more than that. Here is where you don’t do easy, you do wellness to the max.

And you do not, in what’s starting to almost look like mass hysteria over getting Lyme, endanger your health in other ways simply to try to prevent one disease. You can have both — no Lyme and being well. But you have to keep getting smart about it. You have to stop to breathe a bit, get grounded and read plenty of information so you can make the best decisions you can for you. You hold the reins to your health. You have to keep that power. Turn it over too helplessly, and you’ll need to, instead of all this wellness stuff, learn 24/7 how to be a patient victim.