This was the most recent episode of a story called Lyme disease. It was last Thursday. I now have so few blue pills left that I can see the bottom of the amber plastic bottle. The end is in sight! I hope. Now, standing at the end of a road, I can see a story unfolding. Maybe if I tell it to you a helpful picture will emerge. Maybe it had to do with getting back to writing. Or getting ready for the next step. Or just some unnameable process that needed to happen right now at this leg in the journey. You see, I feel all that happens to me happens for a reason.
Last Memorial day, Richard and I decided to walk the whole length of Forbidden Drive, a path which winds along the Wissahickon River. "And back!", he is always careful to add. I felt tired, slightly delirious, and blissful. I also felt a twinge in my lower abdomen. All of these symptoms led me to the dubious assumption that I was pregnant. I said nothing to Richard of this, just walked blissfully along, somehow so at peace with everything. My ankle was bothering me a bit. In three days, that ankle swelled more and drove me to the emergency room. I read on the internet that swelling of joints was common in pregnancy but that if only one joint, not both were swollen, it could be a blood clot and I should get to the ER. I am not a big fan of hospitals. I am so sensitive that being in them makes me feel sicker. But now that I thought another life was involved, I was not messing around. I got into my paper gown in a hospital bed, got shot with a needle, peed in a cup, waiting hours for the results of various tests. Richard read next to me. I drifted to sleep. Suddenly out of my sleep a voice delivered the answers.
"Ma'am, it's not a blood clot. You're not pregnant. You have a Urinary tract infection."
"What about the ankle"
"We call it myalgia, a muscle strain. Elevate it."
Well, so at least I knew why I felt a twinge in my lower abdomen. No new life. Just some bacterial stowaways.
The ankle got better. Episode over.
Till August, when my knee did the exact same thing my ankle had done. For the entire ten days of my vacation! No amount of cooking it with a fever, of rest, would make it any better. Two weeks later I learned I had had Lyme disease all along, and received that bottle with a month's worth of antibiotics. Damn. Okay, I said to the Lyme. I have given you months of my life. Much of my energy which could have been spent living. I hope you have gotten what you wanted. I have suffered, undergone painful and scary experiences and grown stronger. Please leave now.
Imagine being a little feverish for days on end. Imagine itching with a yeast infection which won't go away. Imagine projects piling up around you, the house needing painting, school starting, your birthday, and feeling almost insane with the prospect of it not ending for weeks. Punctuated with moments of... something intangible. Sometimes peace, sometimes a certainty that everything would be alright.
It was very much how I imagine pregnancy or the beginning of life with a baby to be. Uncomfortable, full of trials and side effects, but you get something to show for it at the end. New life! Longed for and long imagined.
But perhaps I do have something to show for it. They say Lyme infiltrates your immune system, trying to convince you that it is a part of you, not an invader. I did feel at times during this illness a strong feeling of self, as if for the first time, there is a kind of frame around my inner core. Perhaps I developed this over the times when my body recognized the invader and built fires to smoke it out. Those fires to some extent remain. In an article I read last week by Dr. Philip Incao, he suggests that the more fevers we have, the less likely we are to get cancer. This invader, much stealthier than Lyme, can sometimes hide out in your body, colonizing your cells toward its own chaotic growth, for years undetected. A fiery immune system is more likely to recognize cancer early and regulate it.
New life comes in many forms. Perhaps I have given my body a boost towards the trials ahead, whatever they may be.
