A Real Writer

I’ve been in an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing program for a year and half, a process that has transformed my writing from dedicated journaling into thoughtful story-crafting, working toward the goal of creating a manuscript suitable for submission to publishers.

Along the way, I have set and achieved smaller but valuable goals, like writing a compelling, 15-page profile of my drumming mentor, acting as a helpmate and supporter to my fellow writers, or even just finding a way to balance work, school, and intimate relationships without having the whole thing topple. These successes have enlarged my view of who I am and what I’m capable of.

This week, my Intro to Publishing instructor invited me and my classmates to use our blogs to address what it means to be an accomplished writer. Because I am a total word nerd, I went right to the dictionary app on my phone, where I discovered that Miriam-Webster defines “accomplished” as being “proficient as the result of practice or training,” and is synonymous with being “cultivated, polished, refined.”  

On a personal level, my sense of being accomplished (at writing, or anything else) is less finite than this definition, less of a static destination and more of a continuum, an ongoing process of self-realization and self-actualization. To me, being an accomplished writer means challenging myself to consistently occupy the space of active observer—or witness—of life, and striving to honestly document both what I see and how that seeing impacts me. Telling stories connects me to deeper parts of myself, connects me to others, and, hopefully, connects others to bigger ideas about life, itself.

Over the course of this program, I have stripped away layers of fear about my writing (What if I hurt, anger, or alienate a loved one with my words? What if readers think me too self-involved and a fool? What if no one actually reads my writing?) and discovered new depths of courage and honesty. Yes, cultivating a more consistent writing practice has assisted me in this process, as has receiving copious feedback from trusted readers. But what provides me the greatest fuel is a continuing hunger for challenge. In this writing program, as I work to meet a 25-year goal, I feel more intellectually and creatively challenged than ever before, sometimes to a deeply uncomfortable degree. And when I yield my fear to the challenge, I discover new territory I didn’t know I could occupy. I’m growing—as a writer and as a human being—and I consider this a very good thing.

If success (as Miriam-Webster suggests) is the accomplishment of a goal, I can say that becoming a more accomplished writer—a more conscious witness of life—has translated into also becoming more successful, as I have achieved an important goal: getting out of my own way, freeing my mind about what is possible in a lifetime, taking on more than I think I’m capable of. What’s exciting is knowing that there are always new levels of understanding and expression to be experienced. I was affirmed in this belief just last week, when I encountered a woman in her eighties—an artist who did not know I write—who insisted that our creative lives get better as we age. 

“Most writers say they produced their best work after 55!” she exclaimed.

When I was younger, I was cowed by the notion that I wouldn’t be a “real” writer until I was published, I wouldn’t be successful unless I wrote a best-seller or captured a regular column in a publication. I’m turning 55 in a handful of days and I can honestly say that at this point in life my ideas about success and being accomplished are less about meeting benchmarks set by others and much more about how earnestly I have given myself over to the magic of life, less about how much attention I get from the world and more about the quality of attention I have given to small wonders, fleeting miracles, and inexplicable connections.  

Getting Realigned

In June of 2011, I was assaulted by a stranger in a restaurant where I had gone to share a few minutes of quiet conversation with a new friend. This man approached my friend and I and suggested that we have sex with him. When we rebuffed his advances, he attacked us. He verbally assaulted my friend, then spit in her face and hit her with a chair. He then grabbed me and threw me across the room. The right side of my head, just behind my ear, struck a metal sink.

A few weeks later, as I was recovering from the concussion caused by the assault, I received another head injury. I arrived home after a brutal day at trial, desperately in need of the bathroom and carrying a huge satchel of paperwork. My apartment was dark, and when I reached overhead to pull the chain on the light switch, the heavy, antique fixture dislodged and crashed down on my crown, knocking me to the floor. My bags spilled all around me and the light fixture smashed into glistening shards, as I sat shaking and crying in a puddle. At the E.R., an MRI showed further concussion.

In March of 2012, I was bit by a tick on my right occiput, at the base of my skull. I didn't know at the time that it was a tick bite, mistaking it instead for a spider bite or highly reactive mosquito bite, as the area around the wound was clearly infected. Because I was naive to the dangers of Lyme disease, I did not seek medical attention. A month later, I drove myself to my local E.R., impaired by a 3-day migraine that was not responding to analgesics. At the E.R., I was given two doses of morphine, which removed the terror I was feeling but didn't touch the pain.

In June of 2014, I was bit on my left occiput, but because I was already in a terrible state of mind and body did not recall the previous bite. Two months and a hellish combination of symptoms later, my body simply crashed. After three or four sleepless nights engulfed in a haze of pain and fear, I sat up and remembered the bite, and then the first bite, and thought, "Lyme." The following two months were spent in bed, recovering from the acute effects of Late Disseminated Lyme Disease, which I had contracted more than two years prior. It was a full two years before I felt that I had managed to overcome the worst effects of Lyme and found some new kind of normal.

Last week, I saw my chiropractor, as I have on many occasions over the past several years. He has been instrumental in my recovery from these bodily insults, as a healer and a friend. I've been in so much pain for so long now that I didn't realize how much I really hurt until, at the end of our session, he touched a spot between my left cheek and ear and I broke down into tears. He sat me up, performed a couple of exams, and said, "Come back soon. I need to work on your jaw." I scheduled another appointment and left.

As I walked out of his office and walked to my car, I realized that all of the pain I have been feeling is related to the misalignment of my TMJ, the temporomandibular joint that allows my jaw to operate properly. A couple of days ago, in more pain than I could manage on my own, I began looking online on how to release TMJ muscle spasms, watching YouTube videos and reading blogs and absorbing information like the crackerjack legal researcher that I am.

Immediately, I discovered that by palpating and massaging the pterygoid muscles, accessible inside my mouth, the pain began to relent and my body, for years in deep spasm in response to the multiple craniofacial injuries I have received, began to relax. I can feel muscles releasing all over my entire body, literally from head to toe. It's absolutely blowing my mind that for the past several years all of the headaches, bouts of vertigo, debilitating anxiety, facial pain, eye twitching, tinnitus, jaw clenching, neck and shoulder spasms, jaw and tooth pain and sensitivity, nasal congestion, lack of mobility and balance, and brain fog have been connected to my jaw being in a spasm so intense that I could not even fit one slender finger between the pterygoid muscle and my jaw on my first attempt. Not even one finger.

I'm still in terrible pain and I can feel that my skeleton is misaligned, but I feel more hopeful today than I have in years, because I made a connection and took action to improve my condition. On one hand, there is a voice chiding me and blaming others for not figuring it out long ago, just like with the Lyme Disease. I mean, this is classic TMJ, people! On the other, I am just grateful that I can feel my body naturally responding to my ministrations with a drive to heal. It just knows what to do when I give it what it needs. This, alone, is reward and encouragement.

What's really astounding me, though, is the interesting coincidence of unlocking the key to years-long chronic pain just as I am reinventing my entire life from a place of dedication to my passions. Here I am, at 53, getting divorced after 12 years of separation, leaving the restaurant I helped to run for 12 years, and embarking on a new life as a writer, editor, and teacher of creative nonfiction, all of which are contributing mightily to a sense of joy and personal fulfillment. Simultaneously, I have taken the first, most important step toward reclaiming my physical health and mental wellbeing, by recognizing an issue and finding a solution.

I'm getting realigned and it feels good.

Climbing Trees

As a child, I loved to climb.

We had a sycamore tree in our front yard, next to the driveway that divided our property from our neighbor's, and nearly every day after school, and on most weekends too, I would hoist myself onto the lowest branch and pull myself up into the comforting arms of that big tree, quickly shinnying up into the topmost branches where I felt safe from the terrestrial chaos. Often, the wind would cause the tree to sway and dance, and I just wrapped myself around a thick limb and rode it out. The feeling of adventure and freedom was intoxicating and profound. But, I also found total peace of mind and body there; to me, that tree was home, safe and comforting.

I could also be found on the roof of our house. Like the half-wild cats we kept, I would climb up onto the fence that separated our front and back yards and stretch my body long until I clasped the very edge of the roof, then execute a hand-gouging pull-up that would allow me to swing my leg up onto the roof. As soon as my foot touched, I'd launch my whole body upward and land on my feet. Then, I would scurry up the steep slope, enjoying the thrilling threat of sliding off, and perch myself on the spine of the roof. From the rooftop, I could see a long distance across the open fields and irrigation ditches that stretched away from our back fence and the Southern Pacific Railway tracks just a few feet beyond. The solitude was bliss.

Today, as I was walking in my neighborhood, I passed a perfect climbing tree and felt the old, familiar urge to climb it. Its trunk was sturdy, and there was a thick, inviting limb within my arm's reach. Looking around to see that no one would catch me climbing their tree, I put one foot up on the tree's trunk and wrapped my hands around the low limb, pulling upward with my weak arms until I was, almost miraculously, up in the tree, a little laugh exhaling from my body as I caught my breath. Encouraged, I reached for the next branch, climbing higher until I felt the familiar comfort of having left the world below. I sat there for a while, wondering if anyone was going to challenge me or run me off their property, but no one came and I finally settled. The day was brisk and bright, a tiny breeze stirring. Eventually, I heard the sound of Canada geese overhead and lifted my gaze, quickly counting about one hundred birds flying south in a softly-shifting formation, their bodies black against the cloudless, blue sky. Their voices and the urgent pumping of their bodies brought me to tears, which I did not resist. I felt connected to them, as though we were all part of the same sky. When the geese had disappeared into the distance, I began my descent, slowly lowering myself to the ground, all-too-aware, at 52, of the damage a hard fall could inflict.

Walking home, I thought about the child that I once was: her love of climbing and the sense of safety it conferred. I realized that back then I felt like prey, and, like the small animals that climb trees at night to avoid being eaten, I hoped to be untouchable in the treetops. But, there was something else up there, too. Solitude and the utter lack of chaos. Even then, my mind and body needed simplicity, order, and quietude. It's only now that I can recognize how I instinctively sought and achieved a source of physical and spiritual preservation, only now that I can fully appreciate how much the trees have supported me all of these years.

Growing In Love

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the concept of "falling in love." I believe that the words we use to describe our experience of life- including our hopes and dreams- have the power to shape our reality. For this reason, I put extra effort and care into choosing my words, because I want to do my best to ensure that the reality I am shaping is one that expresses my values and intentions. And, this idea of "falling" in love really doesn't do that.

Because I was fed the same fairy-tale notions of love as a child that most people are, I grew into young adulthood under the spell of the expectation that love was something I would fall into. Story books, romantic novels, and movies taught me to believe that someone would come along and be so perfect for me that I would just fall, uncontrolled, into love with them, they would do the same with me, and we would live happily ever after in a state of bliss. Of course, as I matured, the fairytale was distorted by experience, and I began to feel that I had failed. But, in time, I realized that I was not the problem, the problem was with the societal reality that the words have created.

The problem I have with the idea of "falling in love" is that it places people in a passive position with regard to the state of love, and love, in my opinion, is anything but passive. Love is action, requiring engagement and choice and a surrendering of the singular into a unified entity that enlarges the energies of all parties involved. This leads me to believe that it is more accurate to say that we "grow in love."

When I think of the phrase "growing in love," I reflect on a pair of trees that have been growing in my yard for many decades. As saplings, each had a great deal of space around them, allowing their upper stories ample sunshine and their roots space enough to deeply connect with the earth. In this way, each tree grew strong in its place. As time passed, the trees grew taller and thicker, and their branches began to reach toward one another, at times even touching, and eventually even co-mingling. While there was some degree of competition for resources, there was also communion. By growing together, one never inching out the other, but, rather, each making room for the other to thrive, their union made the space around them more glorious. The shade they cast together gave shelter to all manner of creatures, the fruit they dropped gave life to both flora and fauna, and each tree gave the other the strength to reach its greatest height while remaining rooted in its deepest source.

To grow in love, people have to engage in love as action. Most people I know consider love to be a feeling. But, I believe that love is a container that holds many feelings. Love isn't the feelings, it's the container. And, the container is comprised of the actions we take to ensure the spiritual well-being of both ourselves and the other, or others, whom we hold precious. So, I don't think that it's healthy to "fall in love." I think that when we "fall in love," we lose our power, but when we choose to "grow in love," our power exponentiates and becomes a gift to all.

The Bridge

Cautiously, I admitted, “In my mind, there is a very high bridge.”

I had been lying in bed for nearly two months, sick, and suffering, and frightened that I would not survive. Every moment was rigidly programmed to ensure my survival: water, pills, food, water, bath, sleep, water, pills, food, shower, sleep, water, pills, food, water, bath, water, sleep. I would creep, bent and trembling, from my bed, to the bathroom, to the kitchen, and back to my bed, the fatigue consuming. Constant pain, like being devoured very slowly and thoughtfully by a malicious force, my bones picked clean. And fear.  Terror. Nausea. Dizziness. Confusion. My betraying mind roaming through the shadows of unfriendly terrain, distorting, chanting, mocking, refusing to return to the places that once brought me pleasure or comfort. My heart hammering, skittering, and suddenly sliding down to a slow thud that would make me think, “I am dying. I don’t want to live like this.”

In the nights, I would lie awake, profoundly aware of the sensation of tiny aliens crawling under my skin, my hungry lungs gasping for breath that would not satisfy, the thoughts of an unknown thinker worming into my mind. Dark thoughts. Desperate. That bridge, beckoning. And, me, executing an eternal, arching swan dive, so peacefully, into lavender twilight. 

Each morning, I would drift, finally, into exhausted slumber and jolt awake a couple of hours later, anxious, frightened by the thoughts of the previous night. What was happening to me? And, how could I tell anyone? They would surely declare me insane, and lock me away. Many weeks passed this way.  

Then, when I had gone countless days with my head, neck, and throat engulfed in a cold fire, and the left side of my jaw almost clamped shut by muscle spasm, I called my sister, sobbing hysterically. “I don’t think that I can do this!” I wailed. “It’s too hard. It’s too much! It needs to stop. Nothing is making it stop!” I felt lost to myself, and the pain had driven me to unfathomable despair. I wanted nothing more than to go very far away, to a place where there would be no pain. Deep spasms of grief erupted from my body, and I cried, shuddering, until I could cry no more.

My sister talked to me slowly, quietly. She reminded me how much she loved me, how utterly she cherished me. She quieted my tears. She made me laugh. She brought me back. 

When I told her about the bridge, she said, without hesitation, “Walk across.”

Between Worlds

I get really scared sometimes.

Like, the other morning, when my blood pressure dropped suddenly and swiftly, and I couldn't catch my breath. I was struggling to remain conscious, terrified that if I passed out, I could hit my head and bleed to death before anyone found me. I got so scared that I felt paralyzed, unable to mobilize to get myself the help I knew I needed quickly. My breath was coming in short, quick gasps, my hands reflexively turning in on themselves from hyperventilation, my mind sending commands that my body could not execute.

Or, when, a few weeks back, I stayed up for four straight days because my body just wouldn't shut off. It felt as though there were trails of foreign bodies marching around beneath my skin, my eyes and nose itched with a ferocious fire, and electrical shocks were continually bombarding my heart, my brain, my gut. On the fourth night, all I could think was, "Alien invasion." I thought I was losing my mind.

There were whole days spent curled in a ball in my bed, the skin of my entire body engulfed in cold fire, every joint unimaginably stiff, sore to the touch, almost immobile, my head gripped by a migraine so powerful and miserable that simply drawing breath was indescribable agony. Moments when I suddenly realized that I was walking in circles in my apartment, unable to remember my particular mission. Long hours of simply not knowing if the pain was ever going to pass, if I was ever going to be able to think clearly again, if the itching and the voices and the delirium would ever let me go.

I was absolutely terrified. And, alone.

When being in your body is agony, it is very hard to want to remain in it. I have felt myself hovering outside myself much of the time these past many weeks, my thoughts far away from my body, my mind drifting through time. I wanted to go back, back to the moment before the insect bit me and injected its sewage into my bloodstream. I have cried, and wailed, and paced, and lost a great deal of sleep clinging to this desire, trying to will time to take me back to that very moment right before the bite, so that I could find that bug and kill it, and narrowly escape this hell. But, I can only be here, cultivating acceptance while concentrating all of my strength for the fight of my life, so far. I want my health back. I want my life back. I want the me that I have known and loved back. But, that is all an illusion. There is no back. There is only this life right now, whatever it brings.

I told a friend the other day that I feel like I am between worlds, but I don't have a shaman to help usher me where I need to go. "I guess I'm going to have to be my own shaman," I said. She affirmed that I am that. And, I think I always have been: only I know how to get me where I need to be.

I said, "I am struggling. I am trying desperately to hold on to the life that I have had, but I know that I can't, because it doesn't exist anymore, it is just an illusion. But, I am really scared to let it go, and surrender to the unknown, even though I know that I have to, because now it is weighing me down."

Today, an assuring voice- my own inner voice- instructed me, "Let go." I am ready to be whatever this time has wrought of me. However broken, bent, fragile, and frightened I may feel, there is a spring of courage welling up within me that gives me direction, and I trust that I will know my way.

Moving Forward

Within 24 hours of starting treatment with the antibiotic Doxycycline, I felt an abatement of my most acute symptoms: searing left-side migraine and jaw clenching, burning pain in my skin, stabbing pains in my joints, blurred vision accompanied by floaters and spots, and the cognition impairment that is commonly called "brain fog." By the time I saw my primary care doctor on Tuesday, August 5th, I was calm, clear-eyed and alert, though still feeling the insistent presence of the more diffuse symptoms. 

My doctor greeted me and asked me to tell him what was going on with me. As I began to explain what had transpired over the past 2 months of my life, it became apparent to us both that he was operating under a very different impression of what had taken me to the hospital three days earlier. He said, "The ER physician diagnosed you with acute fatigue, but you are telling me something very different from that." 

"Yes, I know. He obviously wasn't listening very carefully," I replied. "He wrote on his report that there was 'no headache present at this time,' but searing migraine was one of my chief complaints! Also, he reported that the rash I developed around the insect bite 'lasted 10 days' but I told him that it took about three weeks to heal." 

I continued to explain to my doctor all of the gross and subtle symptoms that lead me to conclude that I was in the throes of a Lyme infection, and he appeared to listen quite intently, occasionally asking me to clarify or expound upon certain details. After I finished telling him my full story, including how quickly I had responded to the antibiotics, he shared with me the results of my blood tests for Lyme, as well as the results of my Complete Blood Count, Thyroid Stimulating Hormone and C-Reactive Protein tests. 

I had spent the better part of the past three days, while not sleeping or lying curled up in a painful ball, extensively researching Lyme disease online, and talking to people who had either had it or knew others who did. I was well aware of the inadequacies of the 2-tiered testing system that is used to screen for the presence of antibodies to the Lyme-causing spirochetes called Borrelia burgdorferi, so I was not surprised to learn that my ELISA test (the first tier) had come back negative. I said to my doctor, "I think we both know that the ELISA is not a reliable way of diagnosing Lyme disease. Even the CDC states on their website that Lyme is diagnosed clinically, not by blood test." 

My doctor quickly responded, shaking his head, "The ELISA is a highly sensitive test. It would seem to me that if you had been infected two months ago, your body would've mounted an all-out assault against the bacteria. We see no sign of that in your blood work." 

"That's not true," I countered. "My white blood cell count is low, you just said so yourself, with low absolute neutrophils and high lymphocytes. This suggests a bacterial infection." 

"Yes," he stated, "but this also happens in viral infections. My sense is that you have a virus. Still, we'll keep you on the antibiotics, just in case." 

Quickly frustrated, I said, "If I had a virus, I would not have responded the way that I have to the antibiotics. It seems very clear to me that this is Lyme. I don't know why it's not clear to you. In fact, I may even have other, tick-borne co-infections, which we both know is quite common." I sighed. "This is crazy." 

He maintained his composure, turning the conversation to how we would proceed, clearly interested in moving on to his next patient. He suggested that I take a 21-day round of the Doxycycline, and then return two weeks after that to have more blood drawn so comparative testing could be completed. I countered with my well-researched opinion that I should take the Doxycyline for at least 28 days, and have my blood drawn on the Monday immediately after completing the treatment. We agreed on that, I requested printouts of all of the records generated by the ER visit and our follow-up, and then we shook hands and parted. At reception, I scheduled my follow-up appointments with an exceptionally helpful and warm receptionist and picked up my printouts. 

Back home at last, I lay down, feeling frustrated and very scared that the one person my insurance company will pay to treat me has very limited ability to help me. This is all-too-common with Lyme disease. Though it has been running rampant in the US for more than 30 years, and is epidemic in the Northeast, where I live, doctors are barely equipped to diagnose and treat this complicated and life-altering disease.  

It doesn't take long for a person grappling with Lyme borreliosis, or what is commonly called Lyme disease, to discover that they are caught in the crossfire of a war. There are powerfully divergent interests at work in the area of Lyme disease: the government agency that sets the standards for testing and treatment, coupled with the IDS (Infectious Disease Society), and the "Lyme Literate" caregivers in the communities where astonishing numbers of people are experiencing the debilitating effects of the illness. Caught in between are people of every walk of life who, most often, fall mysteriously ill, get tested for Lyme, are told by their disempowered doctors that their tests are negative and that what they are feeling is "all in their heads,"and then go months or years before they learn that what they feared all along was true. But, by then, the stealthy and complex bacteria have adapted to their host, burrowing deep into aqueous humor, collagen, and soft tissue, and wrought irrevocable damage. 

The Centers for Disease Control, the CDC, promulgates very specific diagnostic and treatment protocols for Lyme borreliosis, protocols which restrict the ability of the conventional medical community's ability to adequately diagnose and treat it. However, doctors that do not act in strict accordance with these protocols, citing them as being too restrictive and not allowing for the variables that must be considered when diagnosing and treating so adaptable and individuated a disease, are called out as rogues or quacks, and their standing as medical professionals is threatened or stripped from them. This causes a great many in the medical field to fall in line, but it also forces others out to the fringe, creating a rift within which the Lyme patient finds it difficult to know who and what to trust or believe in. 

As I previously stated, blood testing for Lyme borreliosis is done in a 2-tiered manner. The first tier is the ELISA (Enzyme Linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay) method, a technique used to determine if a certain substance is present within a sample. In this case, lab technicians are looking at a blood sample for a specific level of antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi. Variables to consider are the person reading the test's experience with this particular spirochete bacteria, and the stage of infection at the time of testing (too early and there will not be enough antibodies in the sample, too late and the bacteria will have "cloaked" themselves and hidden from body's immune system). 

If antibodies to Borrelia burdorferi are found in a blood sample to be of sufficient quantity to warrant a positive ELISA, the second tier of testing is performed, as a means of confirming the results of the first. This test is called the Western Blot, which, in very simple terms, looks for two classes of antibodies to the bacteria and registers them on bands that look much like barcodes you see in a grocery store. The CDC requires that at least five very specific bands register positive for the presence of the antibody for the Western Blot to be classified, overall, as positive.   

If the blood sample contains less than the CDC-established range, the test result is negative and no further testing is done, even if a patient demonstrates clinically that they likely have Lyme borreliosis (i.e. via a comparison of current symptoms to one's medical history, coupled with the possibility or likelihood that they were exposed to a vector or visited an endemic area). This means that doctors all over the nation are unable to report obvious cases of Lyme borreliosis to the CDC, and suggests that the CDC's numbers are woefully skewed. While the CDC maintains that there are approximately 20,000 new cases of Lyme borreliosis in the US every year, the work of the medical community, coupled with the science concerning the variability of how the disease spreads, suggests, by extrapolation, that the number is approximately 10 times higher. I don't know why the CDC creates these impediments to proper diagnostics and treatment, or allows for their numbers to be so skewed, but I can't help but think that something is seriously wrong with the situation. 

Over the past three weeks, I have had opportunity to talk with countless dozens of people about Lyme disease, and have heard the same story of misdiagnosis and lackluster treatment repeated again and again, from those who have had the disease or have it currently, those whose friends or family members have had it or have it currently, and those who work in the medical community and see the reality of what is happening in my community. We have reason to be deeply concerned, and I'm certain that the government, the CDC, doesn't want us to panic.  Yet, it's very frightening. Borrelia burgdorferi is all around us, harbored most commonly by ticks, but also, less commonly, by biting flies and mosquitoes. It has been documented to pass from infected mother to fetus, and has been detected in breast milk, semen, tears, and urine. The "telltale" bullseye rash is experienced by less than half of those who are infected with the bacteria, and many people never experience a rash at all or even discover an insect bite. I'm not making this stuff up; all of this data is available to the studious. If the general public, and our medical caregivers, aren't better informed and empowered as to how to prevent, recognize, and treat this disease, the numbers of the infected will only continue to exponentiate. 

So, how do we respond to this genuine, escalating threat to our collective health with the kind of force that will bring about change in how the CDC controls the testing and treatment protocols that are leading to an unchecked epidemic? We don't want to be rushing to the ER every time we find a mosquito bite, but we also don't want to lose our health, and maybe our lives, to something we possess the scientific capability to fight. 

I don't have the answers right now, only questions I'll have to answer as I continue on this journey. But, I do know this: I can't in good conscience fail to do my best to underscore, for as many as will listen, the seriousness of Lyme borreliosis, both as the fastest-growing vector-borne disease in the world and, consequently, a foe most worthy of our attention.