The Ninth Circle of Hell

Creating my vision of heaven sent me to the depths of hell.  Tired of life on the road, I had decided it was time to settle down and get back to work. Strange, I know, but I was beginning to feel like a woman without a purpose and it didn’t feel so great. After a long search, I decided to begin the second half of my life in Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. It is a sweet and sleepy Pueblo Magico with beautiful beaches, great trails for running, riding, and hiking, and delicious double cappuccinos.  I found the perfect property and embarked the dream of creating a Sweet Mango Oasis and my new life as a Gentlewoman Farmer.

I arrived in the end of September, shortly after the hurricane of the year, and busted my ass for the next five weeks, mired in dirt, garbage, waist high grass, and dead branches.  The property was an overgrown disaster filled with mountains of garbage, the weather was hot and humid, the work dirty, and the shower in my RV ran between lukewarm and scalding.  At the beginning of week six I fell desperately ill, a kind of ‘flu that I had never experienced.  My friend dragged me to the doctor after a week in bed.  I was diagnosed with parasites, “the Poo ‘Flu”, and I anxiously awaiting the results of my blood work.  I was imagining the worst:  dengue fever, malaria, tuberculosis, yellow fever.  Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that it could be worse – much worse.

November 9, 2016, was the worst day of my life. The United States had a new President and my doctor informed me that my blood work tested positive for a rickettsial disease.  She believed it was Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSP).  Once I recovered from the shock of having a tick-borne disease (TBD) and my tears had abated enough to view my telephone screen, I did a bit of research into RMSP and Lyme disease, the most common TBD.  My symptoms pointed towards Lyme disease, but my doctor prescribed a nine-day course of doxycycline and pronounced me cured.  That was the beginning of my descent into the Ninth Circle of Hell.

In this blog I will share stories of my illness, my experience with different “drug cocktails”, ways to control the disease through diet, easy and delicious recipes for The Lyme Diet, and ideas about how to cope with Lyme disease and, to a certain extent, autoimmune disorders, which Lyme disease becomes if not properly treated. While I don’t believe that Lyme disease can be cured without medical intervention, there are many positive lifestyle changes that you can implement that will make your life less miserable.

Thank you for joining me on the journey of “How I Clawed My Way Out of the Ninth Circle of Hell.”