Focus – Opinions and Features

By Dan Flanagan I’ve been a violinist for 40 years and I have made a living from it since completing school 20 years ago. I’ve also been afflicted with chronic neurological Lyme disease and co-infections for 33 years, and boy oh boy, does it get in the way. I started learning the... Read More »

By Erin Leopold I am listening, but it’s as if I am under water and everything they are saying is garbled and unclear. All I can think is, how do I have Lyme disease when I am sure I was tested several different times? Is this what I suffered with since I first got sick at age... Read More »

By Fred Diamond When I decided to learn more about how persistent Lyme disease affected a family member I loved, I went onto Facebook and typed in “Lyme disease.” I was shocked to see hundreds of groups appear, some with tens of thousands of members. I devoted a chapter in my... Read More »

By Ryan Prior More than three years out from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific authorities continue to monitor long COVID, the syndrome comprising the disabling aftereffects of SARS-CoV-2 that can last for months and years after one’s initial infection. If public... Read More »

By Fred Diamond When I first began educating myself about what family members need to know about persistent Lyme, one of the books that had an impact on me was Gregg Kirk’s “The Gratitude Curve: Using the Lessons of Chronic Illness to Reach Personal Empowerment.” In my boo... Read More »

by Nicole Danielle Bell When I finally realized that my husband’s early-onset Alzheimer’s was caused by Lyme disease and other co-infections, I tried to use my engineering background to make sense of it all. I very quickly found myself lost. An excerpt from my memoir about... Read More »

By Katy Reid, LPC Navigating complex, chronic illness is a uniquely stressful situation for both patients and their caregivers. I dealt with this myself starting at age 16, when a myriad of tick-borne diseases created a slow, physical, decline until I was bedridden. My parents... Read More »

By Christina D. Campbell The phlebotomist leaves to photocopy my blood test order. Meanwhile, I stare at the offensive words on the whiteboard. They’ve been there at least a month. I saw them during my last draw. The words irritated me then, and they irritate me now. I dread... Read More »

by Mary Jane Heppe I probably contracted Lyme decades ago without seeing a tick or a bull’s-eye rash, but only began exhibiting early-stage symptoms in 1998. I had been a major athlete and was terrified that I’d lost energy and use of my body. I asked for two Lyme... Read More »