Okay, what does Hurricane Earl have to do with Lyme disease? Nothing really, though I do wonder what the changes in the pressure as the storm approaches will do to those of us who are so weather-sensitive thanks to Lyme. It rains and I can barely walk, wonder what will happen with the remnants of a hurricane? (I say remnants because I live at least 100 miles inland, so the closest we ever get to the actual storm is a lot of rain and wind.)
But ask my friends, or any roommate I’ve ever had, and they will tell you I am fascinated by natural disasters. You can bet I’ll spend a good portion of the next few days attached to the weather channel and TWC.com monitoring the progress of Hurricane Earl.
My other issue is that since it was time for a male name starting with E for this hurricane, I don’t see why we couldn’t have used Eric instead of Earl. No offense to any Earl’s out there, but I like Eric much more than Earl. And if Hurricane Eric was approaching the east coast, it would allow me with a lot more puns, jokes and comments to make about it. But Earl? I got nothing.
Okay, now that I’ve completely distracted you with talk of hurricanes let me get back to my original point of this post.
Support. I’ve been thinking a lot today about support. Not child support, not life support, but Lyme support. It never ceases to amaze me how many new “Lymies” are joining our forces every day. Having such a great online support system is quite amazing, but it also comes at a cost. Eventually you find that everything you come across has to do with Lyme disease, and you reach a point where you want to NOT talk about it. You want your life to not revolve around Lyme disease (even though it does).
I’m so grateful that the support I get from the online community is not just about Lyme. I’ve received text messages from 14 people today. 6 of those people are from the Facebook Lyme community, and I’ve never met them. The other 8 are people I know in person, and 5 of them have Lyme disease. Out of the 14 messages I’ve had today, only one even mentioned Lyme disease.
My relationship with many of these “Lymies” has turned into something beyond just Lyme disease. They’ve become *gasp* friends. That doesn’t change the fact that the support of this disease is so abundant on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. But it also points out that many of the people in our circle of “support” with time become more than just another name with Lyme disease.
I encourage you all to take full advantage of the support that is out there. But like anything in life, use your brain and your instincts. We are just as much a target for people marketing their “cure all’s” or miracle remedy as anyone else with or without an illness. I don’t trust anyone just because they have Lyme, know someone with Lyme, or have some involvement with the disease. I trust those that give me a reason to trust them.
So please, take advantage and use the wonderful resources that are out there for us, but also use your brain (which I understand can be hard when Lyme has a hold of it). I don’t know where I’d be without the friendships I’ve made along this journey with Lyme, through the resources and support available. Now some of those friends are the ones who make my life so complete in this hurricane of a disease (and I think hurricane is a very appropriate description of what Lyme is like).
And now we’re full circle back to hurricanes. I’d write more but I gotta get back to the Weather Channel and see what what’s changed in the last 2 hours.