“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.” ~ Walter […]
Lit up like a Lyme Green Christmas Tree
“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, Love like you’ll never be hurt, Sing like there’s nobody listening, And live like it’s heaven on earth.” ~ William W. Purkey Well, you know by now that when I’m quiet there’s a good reason. This time? My doctor recommended a new combination of Lyme drugs. Result? […]
And then the Storm…
“Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.” ~ Benjamin Alire Sáenz Sunday was Drug Number Four Day in my current Lyme medication regime. Today is, too. Ever the optimist, I had […]
Attack of the Gorn
“Of all the things we can feel with our minds and bodies, severe pain is the purest, for it drives everything else from our awareness and focuses us as perfectly as we can ever be focused.” ~ Dean Koontz There is this thing that happens to me on my current Lyme drugs. It started in […]
Two Steps Forward…
“Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step.” ~ Samuel Smiles It’s been a frustrating few days for me. I’ve recently changed Lyme doctors, and begun a new regime of drugs […]
Catching My Breath
“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.” ~ Thích Nhất Hạnh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation The past few days have been a […]
A Short Walk
“Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors…disconnected from each other. On foot everything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it.” ~ Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking […]
Love Letters to Myself…
“Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.” ~ Marvin J. Ashton So today I begin the next round of drugs that are making me well. Problem is, in taking these […]
Unexpected Blessings
“Women are never so strong as after their defeat.” ~ Alexandre Dumas I admit it. Yesterday, for a moment (or perhaps a little longer) I wondered how I would pick myself up and keep going. I cried. A lot. My doctor wants me to continue with another full course of the horror drugs which had me […]
Update from Nurse Bert
“Wounding and healing are not opposites. They’re part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others. It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people. It is our loneliness that helps us to find other people or to even […]
My Sweet Poison
“Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it […]
Nurse Bert Reports
“Nursing is a kind of mania; a fever in the blood; an incurable disease which, once contracted, cannot be got out of the system. If it was not like that, there would be no hospital nurses, for compared dispassionately with other professions, the hours are long, the work hard, and the pay inadequate to the […]
Small and Nasty = Bartonella
Musings The little poets sing of little things: Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings; Lovers who kissed and then were made as one, And modest flowers waving in the sun. The mighty poets write in blood and tears And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears. They reach their mad blind hands into […]
Tribute to Eye Patches
“There was a single blue line of crayon drawn across every wall in the house. What does it mean? I asked. A pirate needs the sight of the sea, he said and then he pulled his eye patch down and turned and sailed away.” ~ Brian Andreas, Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas Eye […]
Lyme and the Witches’ Mark
“The fables of Witchcraft have taken so fast hold and deepe root in the heart of man, that fewe or none can (nowadaies) with patience indure the hand and correction of God. For if any adversitie, greefe, sicknesse, losse of children, corne, cattell, or libertie happen unto them; by & by they exclaime uppon witches. […]
It’s an Eyeball Thing…
“If you can’t laugh when things go bad – laugh and put on a little carnival – then you’re either dead or wishing you were.” ~ Stephen King, Under the Dome I have an eyeball thing going on right now, so I’ll keep this post short. My poor left eye is not happy with all these meds […]
Pay Attention to the Messages You Get!
“There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.” ~ Charles Dickens Sometimes, I wish I’d had more faith in myself as I was starting out. One of the things I always teach my students is the importance of trusting and paying attention to the messages they receive when […]
Love Letter To My Left Eye
“Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.” ~ Thomas Merton One of the more insidious aspects of stealth pathogens like Lyme and its […]
It’s Lyme Time!
“What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can’t move, with no hope of rescue? Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn’t been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances […]