Hello! Ah! I’m so sorry, it’s been forever since I’ve posted! I apologize, I began writing a post for Lyme Awareness month, but May was honestly a lot more discouraging than I would have liked it to be, so I never finished. Lyme was difficult last month and knowing it was awareness month made me feel more depressed. May was a hard month for me, but just know that I have been doing a lot better! I am thrilled to say it’s summer and I couldn’t be more excited that I have break from all of the stress that is school!! Anyways, I just felt that I needed to post now before I forget later. Hope you like it!
Okay, so I have no idea what to post on. Lately, there’s been a million things running through my head and I can barely keep track of the day of the week! I can’t believe all that has happened in just three short months! COVID-19 has been pretty scary as well as all of the new problems we have been facing all over the US. I am not really one for watching the news and staying tuned with everything, but now, I feel that it is necessary for me to at least try to understand it all. It saddens me to see all of the difficulties in so many lives and it angers me to see some of the responses. Having Lyme Disease, I have learned at such an early age that not everything we hear about is true. Much of our media is twisted and lots of information is left out. I hate to see the panic and the frustration that this causes. I wish to help others feel more relief and feel that they can trust what they find. Like all good writers and reporters know, you have to find a valid source and true evidence before you make a claim. This goes for anything and everything. I want to encourage you to do your research. Look for truths in everything. Find multiple sources. Don’t believe what is given to you unless you have evidence and believe it is valid. I’m not sure how much depth I’ve gone into with the origin of Lyme in other posts, but I want you to know, it took me a long time to find the truth. It wasn’t given to me. I’m just going to come out and say it… I was initially given lies. (Warning! I’m about to get pretty controversial and probably pretty mad.) I remember the first time I ever heard about Lyme. I was sitting in seventh grade health class taking notes on random diseases when my teacher mentioned Lyme Disease. She didn’t say much about it. Mostly, we just looked at pictures of bullseye rashes and then moved on. I didn’t ever think much of it until I was diagnosed with it a year later. Weird, huh? Now, I am not claiming that my health teacher was wrong in any way. In fact, everything that she said was technically right, but it was just missing some pieces. This is my main point. You can get truth from plenty of places, but within that information, there can be many gaps. For instance, I’m sure many of you know that Lyme Disease comes from ticks. Well, this is very true, but it’s missing a lot… Lyme can come from any vector-borne insect or arachnid. This includes mosquitoes! Now this information would have been pretty helpful if I had learned it before I was diagnosed! Now, please don’t think I’m trying to offend anyone! I appreciate hearing the opinions of others and this is why I have posted a survey for Lyme. (Please fill it out if you haven’t already!) But I do want to mention that there is a difference between doing your research and coming to have a strong opinion of something, and listening to someone else’s opinion and just using it for yourself. We all have the right to voice our opinions! We have the right to vote and choose for ourselves what we want to believe in. So please, take advantage of that! Search for the truth! Don’t let others tell you what to think! Please, take it upon yourselves to create your own opinion, and from there, voice it! Act upon it (carefully)! And influence others; let them hear you! Please, do it for yourself. I promise, you will never regret finding the truth for yourself.