Everything For a Reason
Part 19
It was inevitable. I’m outside all the time in an area rife with ticks. All kinds of ticks. The benign dog ticks, and the Lyme carrying deer ticks. I do my clothes-off-when-I-come-in-all-over-tick check. I wear long pants and rubber boots and long-sleeved shirts (other than once or twice). And yes, maybe there was a time or two I didn’t do a thorough check. There was that time, up in my bedroom, taking off my shirt and seeing one on my stomach. My first instinct (and I think many people’s), is to remove the thing and throw it as far as you can. So I did that. And then I couldn’t find it. I gave my room a good, solid vacuuming, but it’s an old house. The floors have lots of deep cracks between the floor boards. There is a possibility that my many since-then attempts have not eradicated the little fucker.
Then there was the morning, about three weeks ago, when I got up, went downstairs and did an hour of yoga. I do Sun Salutations, plus some good stretch poses, squats and a few spot exercises (for my back). This is one of my favourite times of the day and I don’t rush it. I know it takes an hour and I take the full hour, without a timer, knowing that when I’m done, I’m done. I got in the shower afterwards, and while shaving my armpit, I thought I nicked myself because I felt the razor catch. I pulled it away and took a look at the blades. A tick was stuck in there, squiggling its eight little black legs at me. I threw it down the drain.
At the end of last week, Sylvia and I took a walk around a trail by her family’s cottage on Beaverdam Lake. It was a wide open trail, on a dirt road, so there was really no worry about ticks then. When Sylvia had initially suggested we go on floaties, I didn’t know she meant the lake, I thought she meant in the ocean. Just the thought makes me cold. I wasn’t really feeling myself. Hadn’t for a few days. My joints felt achy, and my muscles felt weak, and I thought maybe I’d just been overdoing it. I’d been taking down limbs from the two maple trees that will be fully cut down later this summer. One is too close to the house, and was a volunteer years ago that was never dealt with at the time it sprouted. Now it covers half the house and is damaging the roof. The other, is beside the well, and is drinking my precious water. It was also a volunteer, as are the others on my property. Norway maples, as I’ve come to learn, are invasive and will take over an indigenous forest. They create a dense shade and drown out all undergrowth. I call them garbage maples.
I laid in the sun at Sylvia’s cottage and stood in the water which was a tea-stained colour from the heavy forest and wetlands surrounding it. I started getting that feeling of sickness setting in. The feeling where suddenly everything drops. Your energy, your shoulders, your facial features all droop, and you just want to sink into a nice bed with the covers all warm and soft. We drove home then and when I got inside the house, the mosquito bite on my knee that had been itching for a few days now had become the tell-tale bulls-eye rash of a Lyme-infected tick bite. Just like that, my knee was swollen and hard and painful, with a red ring encircling the whole of my knee cap. Dammit.
I am so thankful my mom posted on Facebook not long ago about the bulls-eye rash, otherwise, I would not have known the urgency of getting it taken care of. I am also so grateful for friends in the alternative healing arts. And lastly, I am grateful for Google with its endless amounts of information (except if you’re looking up anything that falls outside the prescribed Covid narrative… then it’s crickets). Between friends and Google, I got my herbal arsenal together and started right away. Oil of oregano, taken both internally and topically on the bite, it’s a good antibacterial and anti-fungal. And lavender oil, also topically, on the bite is anti-inflammatory. I mixed them both with almond oil as it isn’t great to put full-strength essential oils on your skin. My friend Catherine, in Squamish, is sending me some Oil of Thyme which is another amazing antibacterial. I took a dose of Vitamin C, B, and Magnesium, Omega 3’s and Co-enzyme Q10. I called the hospital in Liverpool to be sure they were open (our little hospital in Shelburne has an emergency room that opens at 8pm. There’s proof right there of a doctor shortage in Nova Scotia.)
I drove an hour to the hospital in Liverpool in the morning and in the emergency room the doctor grilled me about whether or not I had seen the tick. The rash on my knee was evidence enough, and he sent me away with antibiotics for 21 days and an appointment for a blood test in a month to see whether the bacteria was still in me.
Lyme disease can be difficult to diagnose because symptoms can take from three days to one month to appear and many of the symptoms — fever and chills, fatigue, headache, muscle and joint pain — are similar to other ailments. If untreated, it can lead to more serious conditions such as chronic arthritis, and affects every organ in the body from damaging the heart to causing permanent neurological impairment. It’s a big deal. Apparently, only 70% of people get the rash. I feel fortunate that I did, and that is was easy to diagnose.
Remember a few posts ago, I said I wanted to up my health game? I already eat quite clean. I eat an occasional bag of Miss Vickies Salt & Vinegar chips, and dark chocolate doesn’t live long in my house, but other than that… I never eat fast food. I don’t buy cookies or candy. I don’t eat much meat and only from local farms. Since moving here to Nova Scotia, I haven’t eaten much meat at all, since I’m not yet familiar with local farms, and the meat at the grocery store is from questionable sources; most likely from big producers, which is not a healthy source if you ask me. I’ve had fish once or twice, but I can’t do deep-fried. Lemon and dill is my favourite way to prepare most fish, salmon being my preferred finned meal. Even then, it’s a once every month or two sort of thing.
It is suggested on many Lyme disease health sources to adopt a plant-based, no gluten, dairy or sugar diet. Yikes. The part I’ll have most trouble with is cheese and yogurt. I do love them. Plant-based I can do. The reasoning is that the Lyme bacteria infiltrates your gut and causes your own immune system to attack itself. By adopting this diet for the foreseeable future, I will be eliminating those foods which are more likely to cause an inflammatory response, saving my immune system from the added load.
I will beat this. I am so healthy and strong. This is a damn good reason to become even more healthy. I want to be around and be strong and mobile well into my 90’s. Then I can die peacefully in my sleep. But not until then. I feel for people who suffer chronic illnesses. It must be horribly debilitating and depressing to have a constant, deep concern for your health. I wonder though, how many of these people had unhealthy lifestyles to begin with. Garbage in, garbage out, I say. If you’re not treating your body with the reverence and respect it deserves, then you are bound to feel the consequences. I look around me at the average North American diet and it is no wonder that the majority of people are on some pharmaceutical or ten.
A neighbour has been undergoing a diet change and herbal supplements in order to fix an issue he was having with inflammation and depression. His joints were so sore he couldn’t move much, he was depressed and lethargic. The doctor told him there was nothing more they could do for him. Now, after a couple of months on this new diet and with herbal support, he feels better than he has in years. No more joint pain, no more depression. A cloud has lifted and life is good again. When he told his doctor this, She said, “Well there’s nothing that can scientifically prove that herbs and diet work, so your recovery probably wasn’t due to those things. But I’m glad you’re feeling better,” ???! “Scientifically proven”?? Seriously. Herbal medicine has been around for thousands of years. Medicine has only changed in the last century, particularly in North America, when Roosevelt changed the structure of the medical system so that doctors were no longer able to use plants and food as medicine (hmmm, what was that famous quote about letting food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food? Often attributed to Hippocrates, that idea rings as true today.) Go to any European country and you will still find that doctors are as well versed in homeopathics and herbs as they are in pharmaceuticals. North Americans are seriously addicted to their drugs and put blind faith in doctors that try to manage symptoms, through the use of pharmaceuticals, but never seem to find cures, ensuring you will stay on those drugs for a long, long time.
My goal here on my 1/2 acre, is to make a small medicinal herb farm and get my clinical herbalist designation. My kitchen garden will feed my B&B guests the healthiest and tastiest food I can share.
What is not so tasty or healthy is the back attic space off my bedroom, with the stairs leading down to the kitchen, that will become my living area when I have guests, so I can leave the main part of the house to them without interruption. In the meantime, other than some of the garbage and bits and pieces, I have not touched that area since moving in. Now that the weather has become warmer and I still have not gotten the storm windows off my bedroom window, I’ve been needing the extra airflow, so I’ve been leaving the door to that space open and the cat has been loving poking around in there.
Then he started scratching his face off. Almost ripping his eye open at one point. I decided it must be that musty old space and all the stuff in it. I closed the door, put his cone on until he healed enough, and started removing the nasty carpet, the old futon, and the cardboard lining the walls. I borrowed a ShopVac when I realized the job would be tougher that my household vacuum could take. I got half the room done, uncovering some seriously old linoleum and floorcloths sitting atop the floorboards that also act as the woodshed ceiling below.
Of course, once Lyme hit me, I’ve not done anything else, but it is well on its way to becoming clean enough to start making it a livable space.
We can look at adversity as something that holds us back, keeps us down. Or we can see the silver linings and appreciate the gifts that challenges bring. There is never a reason to roll over and give up. There is always a positive change you can make. Even the most simple change can be an act of great power, and propel us into a whole new direction. One where we are not the victim but the leader of our own lives.
Next: Today Will Be the Day
Notes from the Edge of the World 