Beryla Gann’s Lyme Hack:

“Four years ago today I found a tick in my leg behind my right knee with a bull’s eye bruise rash around it. It only took me a few days to get to the doctor, and they confirmed they suspected it was Lyme disease and that they were going to run tests. But they warned me that the tests were going to be negative. They gave me antibiotics, 14 days, and sent me on my way. But the very next, well it was a Friday, so that Monday I got in contact with a Lyme specialist. I had three Lyme tests that were negative. But I saw the tick and I saw the bullseye. And they were negative. So I paid out of pocket for the nice test, expensive test the IGeneX test, it was positive. Go figure. So surprising. And I have been fighting ever since. While I only saw the tick four years ago, I’ve also had it my whole life, we’re pretty sure. There’s not really a test for it. But I’ve spoken to four or five Lyme specialists, nurses, doctors, etc. and told them about my life and my medical history. And they’re convinced that I’ve had it since I was in single digits. My mother, my husband and I have each come to that conclusion on our own as well. So while I found the tick in my leg, and I had a bull’s eye and I got treated within five days, here I am four years later, at least a year out from remission. Lyme if I didn’t know better, I would say it’s actively malicious. It can affect any and every part of you. It mimics other diseases it triggers other diseases that don’t get untriggered as it were. Um and it has been fighting, it has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. And it’s not like I’ve not gone through the ringer on other topics, situations, whatever. It has brought me to my lowest lows. It has made me want to quit more times than I can count. But I never gave up. I’m not there yet. In August. I had a power line, which is a type of central line placed in my chest, and I went through five months of an extremely intensive IV protocol. And those five months were harder than the entire rest of my fight. But it worked. I’m on a step down protocol right now. And in a few months, hopefully I’ll be on maintenance and then a year from that remission, which puts me about best case scenario a year and three months out. Which would take my fight to over five years. And that’s common. I am lucky, I got seen by a Lyme specialist and someone who believed me right off the bat. If it weren’t for that tick in 2016, I actually would never have known that I had Lyme. And I never would have known why I had autoimmune diseases and other issues and all that stuff, most of which are less severe since treatment. I’m not 100% sure what keeps me going, because just wanting to be better, while an incredibly motivating factor isn’t enough on its own. So I try to find specific reasons. So getting better so that I don’t feel sick all the time is obviously on the list but getting better for my husband’s sake is on there. Getting better so that we can travel is on there, getting better so that we can have dogs or expand our family one day. These are the reasons I don’t give up. And at some point, it also becomes stubbornness. I didn’t make it this far just to quit, I didn’t fight for four years just to quit now. So my advice to anyone who needs advice is find a reason outside of not being sick, to fight for, find something that you can get a picture in your mind about, you know, if you can get better so that you can climb a mountain, it’s not really my goal, but you know, someone’s- picture that picture you on the top of that mountain victorious. That will probably be a better motivator than I don’t want to be sick, which I mean is a huge, huge motivator. But I think for something this hard, you need more than that. So my advice is to find something worth fighting for. Don’t give up. Cuz this might be the hardest thing you do. But you can do it, you can get better. And even though there were times I wanted to quit screaming and crying and cursing, I wanted to quit- I didn’t, and I’m so glad because I’m not out of the forest but I can see the tree line and one day you will too.”