When we’re young we picture our lives going a certain way. Whether that be going to college, getting married, landing our dream job, or maybe even exploring the world.

But what we never picture is having our lives completely altered by an unpretentious tick. Yet such a small insignificant insect quickly flipped my entire world upside down.

Lyme Disease. The thief of my health and giver of many painful memories.

With an endless list of internal symptoms my illness remained invisible to the human eye. Only my immediate family and close friends will ever truly understand a fraction of what I went through.

I went back and forth in my head how to most effectively display my experience with Lyme Disease. Ultimately I decided on a poem. Here goes nothing…

Waiting. Wandering. Weak. Praying to God when will I overcome this Lyme?

Days? Months? Maybe years? This needed to end before it stole my prime

Nobody understood the turmoil going on deep down inside my mind

What I considered now to be a “good day” had been completely redefined

A morning that was free from the anxiety of simply waking up and starting the day

Meant a morning free from nausea and throwing up, on the bathroom floor I would lay

I began to hate the smell of coffee, for it resembled morning time which I acquainted with dread

What I wouldn’t give to surrender to my ever present fatigue, forget reality, and roll back in bed

Quitting track and cross country, the two sports I loved, was one thing, but quitting school wasn’t an option

I felt as if everywhere I went I was holding a sign for all to see that simply said proceed with caution

friends and acquaintances couldn’t comprehend my struggle because it remained hidden from their site

They would never see the pains that made my whole body ache or the true effects of that one tick bite

Symptoms would come and go, every day something new, consistency became a thing of the past

Finding a good doctor was difficult, many believe Lyme disease to be incomprehensible and vast

Swallowing pills and receiving B12 energy shots made it on the list of my daily schedule and routine

My body became the battle grounds of an internal war, the enemy being Lyme, my body the marine

I fought the battle hard, but my biggest struggle was acting as if I was fine, smiling through the pain

If my life was compared to a road, Lyme was a semi attempting to push me into the opposite lane

But I wouldn’t let this disease defeat me, for I had come too far to let Lyme invert my smiles

For I was an athlete and I knew races were won, but only after training many long hard miles

Lyme disease was one of many races that I will struggle to finish in my lifetime, this I know to be true

But keeping your faith in God and gathering strength from your family will surely help you get through