My Journey with

Chronic Lyme Disease

I saw my first bullseye rash on my own leg in 2003. Being new to Connecticut and knowing nothing about Lyme disease, I didn’t seek any treatment. For a few weeks after, I had a mild flu that I couldn’t seem to shake. It passed, and, then, nothing. 

Four years went by and I felt healthy, if a bit tired. I easily rationalized the tiredness as normal fatigue from giving 15 massages each week. I moved from Connecticut to New Mexico to study Āyurveda. I met the man who would become my husband.

A case of food poisoning in 2007 became chronic diarrhea, nausea, anemia, weight loss, exhaustion, and breathlessness. I saw several doctors who couldn’t figure out why I was having these symptoms. They scoffed at my requests for Lyme disease tests.

Finally, in a single day, I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis and a severe heart condition. My physicians recommended surgery for both. Although I did eventually have open heart surgery, I was convinced that removing my colon would be a mistake. I began the long, slow process of healing my digestive system using integrative medicine. I tried pharmaceutical drugs, acupuncture, complex herbal protocols, and specific dietary regimens.

I was angry at being chronically ill. I was angry with doctors who were unable to accurately diagnose me, who treated symptoms instead of causes, who offered anti-depressants rather than human connection, who recommended surgery but said what I ate didn’t matter (as long as it wasn’t coffee!), and who prescribed unnecessary and painful procedures. I felt betrayed by my body and lost faith in my body’s innate ability to heal. My dark night of the soul seemed to last for years. Read more about my dark night of the soul here.

Living an Āyurvedic lifestyle and practicing Yoga improves the quality of my life in both large and small ways. Living with Chronic Lyme provides me with a solid understanding of the challenges people living with chronic illness face on a daily basis.