The Puzzle is Solved

At long last the pieces of the puzzle have been placed together, and it all makes sense. I went back to the doctor on Monday to hear my test results and was given a diagnosis of Lyme disease. Thankfully in my case it is treatable, I have been put on a three week round of anti-biotics. I could have avoided much confusion if I had known what to look for from the start, because looking back I can be almost sure I know when I was infected. In hopes that I can help others avoid having to walk the road I did, I'm going to share a little more about the signs and symptoms as they appeared in my case.

Once I got over the initial shock of diagnosis and did some research about it, I was able to look back and piece together many things that happened in the past few months that I never understood. Back in the late Spring or early Summer I had gotten a bug bite on my foot that became red and swollen. It concerned me for a while but when it disappeared within a week or so I dismissed my worries. I never saw a tick on my foot, the deer ticks that carry the disease can be so small you never see them. If I had known that a rash around the site of the bite is often the initial indicator that you have picked up this disease I could have avoided a lot of confusion. In the next months I had many, many symptoms. Several of them only lasted for one or two weeks, and then disappeared, so I didn't pay much attention to most of them. I experienced jaw pain and stiffness, upset stomach, muscle twitching, flu like fatigue, rashes, loss of appetite, dizziness, and most notably joint pain. It was the joint pain that made me finally realize something was wrong.

As I look back I see the hand of God so clearly through it all. I am so thankful for my doctor, and that he had the wisdom to order the Lyme test, so that I was diagnosed before I move and while it was still in the early stages. I felt very strongly that God was going to bring resolution before I moved. I just find His sense of timing very amusing. The diagnosis was given exactly one week before my departure date. As one of our elders once said, "God is never late, but He sure misses a lot of opportunities to be early!" So many times in the middle of it all, I became so discouraged, feeling like this struggle would never be over. And God would remind me that I could just trust Him, He had it all taken care of. As usual, He has proven Himself completely faithful, and I look back wondering why I ever doubted. He is always faithful and He always will be, that is simply who He is.