Another blog

Lyme disease isn't new, but if you don't have lyme or know someone who does, you may not know how controversial this disease can be.

A good start is the documentary Under Our Skin.  I remember in the early days of my illness, while fighting to prove I could still work (so I already had plenty of complicated politics to contend with), watching this documentary and thinking, "man, I'm glad THAT's not what I have!"

My story is not unique, except that 3 years is much less time than it takes a lot of people (especially in states that don't acknowledge lyme) to get diagnosed.  In fact, I've seen stories in the news a few times lately that even overlapped many of the specific details of my story....mom in her thirties who lost or almost lost her job, went undiagnosed for three years, had to travel to Seattle to get diagnosed (uncanny how specifically similar some of our stories are).

I started blogging while I was recovering early on....trying to get my brain to work right.  I had no real luck with that until diagnosis and treatment.  When I started posting in my other blogs about lyme and on facebook (Invisibly Lyme Montana Facebook page) I quickly started finding plenty of Montanans with lyme, even in my own town.  And that was without looking, so if I were to network better, I really wonder how many people I would find.

Some of my earlier rants (I'll link to them here in following posts) have been validated recently by new research (different strains of lyme, which ticks carry it, etc.) but as you'll see if you dig into this (or know if you have lyme), science is not what's driving criteria for care of lyme disease.  If you are remotely interested in lyme, watch Under Our Skin (I know its on netflix).

I don't know that I will get to build this blog very quickly, but am always looking for more information and more sites....and I'm always interested in stories.  Please feel free to post comments on any of those things or anything at all (or even just where you're from, whether you have lyme, how long, etc.).  There are projects out there collecting stories and publishing some of them, so I'll try to post those links here, too.

If you suspect you have lyme, don't give up until you've MADE SURE you don't.  It's hardly ever as easy as one test to discover.