From the Cornell Daily Sun: "After over a year of struggling to find the origin of my affliction, and after bouncing around from physician to physician, only to hear the new guy arrive at the same false conclusion as the guy who came before him, I dried up. Any energy I had left after this whole Lyme thing began was spent on finding a doctor who would listen."

From the Cornell Daily Sun:

Living With Lyme

Two-thousand and nine wasn’t a particularly productive year for me. I was accepted into Cornell’s graduate program in public affairs which was nice. For a moment. And then life went back to being normal. The new normal, that is.

Earlier that year, after what seemed like a seasonal bout with the flu, I contracted Lyme disease. Only I didn’t know it at the time. I just knew something was terribly wrong and that my body didn’t feel right.

I felt tired when I woke up. And not just tired — exhausted. I had constant aches, shooting pains and a rash appeared on both my arms. Fevers and chills, headaches and malaise, a stiff neck, strained breathing, sensitivity to light and sound: They were all part of it too. The whole world looked and sounded different to me, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what was going on.

But now that I do know, the world still seems different — even though it’s only me who has changed. After over a year of struggling to find the origin of my affliction, and after bouncing around from physician to physician, only to hear the new guy arrive at the same false conclusion as the guy who came before him, I dried up. Any energy I had left after this whole Lyme thing began was spent on finding a doctor who would listen. I knew what I had, I just needed to meet a doctor who knew enough about Lyme to confirm it.

These days, I’m just kind of … here. This is how people with chronic Lyme disease live. We’re here experiencing life just like everybody else, but the ambitions we had are forced to lie dormant as we work to control our illness. There are no good days with Lyme, just occasional moments of joy one tries to hold onto. I cling tight to those moments, as I fight to continue my journey to revive the man I was before.

Click here to read the rest of the article.