My Lyme Journey

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Eight years ago, I was beginning a transition from psychotherapist to coach. (I still don’t know what the difference is to be honest. I’m no longer a licensed psychotherapist. I don’t diagnose and treat mental illness. With 15+ years of experience, I just do what I do. I do my thing. My focus is on helping my clients step into a bigger, bolder, more powerful version of themselves so they can be more of what they want to be . So maybe a therapist helps you when you are injured and brings you back to baseline while a coach helps you be the best you can be. Actually, read Geo Hanzlik’s excellent article on this if the topic interests you.) After a pivot from engineering to psychotherapy, I had been working as a therapist for several years and was enjoying working as a referral partner with the counseling center of my engineering institution, The Colorado School of Mines. I loved working with the students and tended to really click with them as I had been through the unique experience of Mines myself. I realized I had left my engineering past behind and had a lot to offer from that experience. I began focusing on the next phase of my career- entrepreneur coaching for STEM professionals. I did what coaches are supposed to do - signed up for rather expensive group coaching from a big name “high powered” coach (in truth, he was just an asshole and a mediocre coach, but that’s another story). Go Big! Step into your discomfort!

I panicked under the pressure and expectations I applied to myself. My resting heart rate went up 10 bpm as soon as I wrote the check. A month later, in January 2017, through a rather strange set of circumstances I got a staph infection and I couldn’t shake it off. I remember that I cut all my fingernails way too short one morning before heading to the climbing gym (you know how that goes every now and then? Well I managed to cut every single one too short). Climbing on sandpaper-like gym walls just tore my raw fingers down more. And then I think what happened is I got staph through the gym’s yoga mats. Lesson learned - always bring your own yoga mat.

Within a couple days I had what I thought was swollen lymph nodes in my arm pits. On that Saturday, I went to the local Urgent Care where the medical professional examined me and exclaimed, “Those aren’t lymph nodes…. I think you have MRSA (staph).” She gave me some antibiotics, but the infection flared up as soon as the antibiotics ran out. A few more unsuccessful treatments later and I was referred to an chronic illness clinic specializing in Lyme disease. After a few more rounds of treatment with them without success, my practitioner said, “Maybe you have Lyme.” What I heard was, “I don’t know what to do here, so I’m going to what I know.”

The way that clinic works is that they give you a two month treatment protocol and you return in two months to see where you are at. Somewhere along the line there, the clinic called and told me they had to reschedule my appointment. I had lost interest and didn’t call back.

And I had the realization that things just weren’t working and something had to shift in the way I was showing up in the world. I don’t know how to explain it much beyond that. And I don’t know that anything in my behavior changed beyond that realization, but something inside me did shift.

Sooner after I got a call from an unknown number, which I never answer, but somehow felt compelled to answer this time. “Hello, this is the Sound Clinic, we’re calling to reschedule your appointment.” Sure. Why not? I go to my appointment. “Your staph is gone, but you have Lyme.” Ugh. I don’t even know what that means yet. I remember finding a tick on my arm when I was a kid in Texas and just scraping it off. Maybe that was it. Maybe that’s why I’ve felt tired for as long as I remember (In college, I was known as “the sleepy guy.”).

In short, Lyme disease boils down to layers of stealth or micro-infections that I just can’t shake off due to compromised immunity. Lyme (borrelia) is but one of those layers, and in my experience, one of the easier ones to treat. Anyhow, after shifting to a more paleo-keto(ish) diet, I began to make significant progress with the treatments over the next year, moving through layers of micro-infections - parasites; mold, fungus & yeasts (Candida) symptomatic of poor gut health; mycoplasma; Borrelia (Lyme); and Bartonella (cat scratch disease). Then I arrived at the final boss - Babesia, where I completely stalled out. I’ve been stuck there for 5 years now. Every now and then I relapse back a few layers into Bartonella and Borrelia with Candida (why do we capitalize those bastards?) making a frequent appearance due to my sweet tooth and affinity for double IPAs. I work my way back through those layers and then stall out again at the final boss, Babesia.

Symptoms change based on which micro infection dominates my system. Fatigue Extreme fatigue. (I’m always fucking tired.) Mild to extreme lightheadedness. Brain fog. Chronic, acute pain in my lymph nodes, particularly in my crotch and armpits. I was (and am) able to make it through a 50 minute session with my clients or record a one hour podcast interview by which time I was completely spent. Eventually I dialed back my work as a coach/therapist to focus on health.

I developed an interesting pattern where I started signing up for week long road bike tours in the summertime. As my training intensified, I could tolerate sugar a little better. Then on the tours, sugar would be everywhere. On one tour in Glacier National Park, we would end the ride with ice cream, and then have dessert with dinner, or sometimes two desserts. Then the tour would end, and I would ride less, but continue with sugar and throw some beer on top of that, and guess what - Candida. And Candida treatment sucks! The toxicity created by all those wonderful yeasty bugs dying off was just awful. And I did this for a few years in a row before finally realizing what I was doing to myself. Duh.

Anyway, after several years without significant progress - just relapses and back to the baseline of the final boss, Babesia - I started working with the head of the clinic last year. In hindsight, I should have started working with him four years ago, but…. Yeah. Here I am.

He’s got some high powered treatments in his arsenal, but still, my progress has been minimal - stuck in Candida again. The doc keeps asking me how I feel and how that’s the number one indicator of progress, and of working through one layer of infection to the next. There seems to be an emotional quality to these infections. Babesia for me seems to relate to fear. Bartonella, anger. Borrelia, crazy and irrational - I love you, I hate you, don’t leave me. What’s the quality of Candida? I’ve struggled to put my finger on it, but I’m thinking depression or just deep funk which is probably just the same thing.

Regardless, I recently hit the same point I hit early on with the staph infection - something has to shift in the way I’m showing up in the world. The shift hasn’t been as simple as it was with staph. I feel like I’m just getting started. I had been often filling my days just trying not to feel miserable and exhausted - running from the present experience. Now I’m trying to “lean in” as they say, and deal directly with what’s in front of me. Less video games. More meditation. Bringing more peace and calm into my life while de-stressing, etc. etc. Recently it came to my attention that I don’t have much of a relationship with grief, and that I have a lot to grieve. And that I’ve been dealing with all this so long that I have given up in a way. I used to say I was close to finishing my treatment, but I was saying that for so long, it seemed ridiculous. “I’m almost there.” You can only say that for so long. I shifted to saying that I am “managing” Lyme disease. I also abruptly left my men’s community with the ManKind Project last spring and have just started to fill in that gap with a new and much more suitable (to me) community.

So anyhow, that’s basically where it stands today. Something began shifting in me about a month ago and I’m looking to facilitate that shift deeper and further. It’s been a long time coming.