I Guess I'm A Soldier, Fighting For Courage

The other day, my good friend Brooke and I were talking on the phone. We were laughing hysterically as two twenty-something girls often do. Of course the subject was of men. I heard myself saying to her,

"He obviously has no idea what my life is like!"

We think it is so funny - that my life is so bizarre and off-kilter that it leaves no room for "normalcy", yet most people would never know... unless they looked beyond the surface of my skin. I am anything but normal.

She responded in all seriousness, "Tamara, I think no-one really knows what your life is like".

This girl is correct... No one does knows what my life is like.

I have late-stage neuroborreliosis, most commonly referred to as CNS (Central Nervous System) Chronic Lyme Disease. I have been unknowingly infected with this illness since 1999. For years my illness went undiagnosed, leaving the medical doctors baffled at my endless list of bizarre symptoms, giving my illness the name of Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It wasn't until recently in December of 2005, I was accurately diagnosed with Lyme Disease, along with the coinfections of Babesia, Bartonella, Erlichiosis and Mycoplasma Pneumonia. Lyme Disease impairs your immune system allowing other illnesses to take hold, layering one upon another, and in turn causing more damage to your already depleted immune system. These illnesses, or coinfections are hard to detect because your body cannot fight these illnesses, thus creating no antibodies to show up on a common blood test. Most people with Lyme have one or two coinfections, but not me! I hit the jack pot! I have all four most common coinfections.

Everyday I go to war. I fight this unseen terrorist who lives in my body. It is somewhat like searching for Bin Laden, and I am the prisoner of war. I am captive to my medicine cabinet which houses my 131 pills I take daily (that is the official number - I just counted ya'll). Along with that, I do other various treatment modalities daily, either at home or with one of my doctors, which cleanses/supports my body, and neuro-exercises that keep my brain up and running. I guess you could say I have state of the art fighter equipment, and every day I start battle all over again.

My plan of attack is as follows: learn to love my illness. What do I need to learn from this? How can I outsmart my disease psychologically and physiologically so it can no longer have the power over me to thrive in my body? I learn to understand the bacteria, how it moves, where it hides, what feeds it... I build up my immune system, killing the bacteria slowly and strategically, giving my body time to heal. I have learned the importance of thought and intention. Everything I need is contained within myself – even the gift to heal myself.

Ultimately I fight my illness by finding peace with it - having compassion for it. Illness does not have the capacity to live in the resonance of love. Beginning with myself, I learn to love myself with all my imperfections; with all my limitations. “I am enough", knowing behind all of this, there is a greater purpose.