Living with Lyme disease and other chronic illnesses is often overwhelming and exhausting both mentally and physically! Never would I have thought that I would struggle daily to function as a “normal” human. But, never the less, here I am! I’m surviving one day at a time, pushing through, keeping my faith, staying strong, and remaining positive…. Most days at least. Other days I’m an absolute hot mess and don’t even want to deal with my own self!
I am a proud mom, wife, daughter, artist, and stubborn Southern girl. I am honest, wear my heart on my sleeve, often speak without a filter and have a bad habit of cursing… Sorry mom! My family and I live on a small 14 acre piece of heaven in the beautiful Texas hill country. We have a three mini cows (oh my goodness, they’re so cute), a horse, and a handful of chickens, guineas and ducks, with little actual knowledge of how to run a ranch! Hence, we like to call it our “funny farm”. Shortly after we moved here, my health began to slowly decline.
I had previously been diagnosed with EVB (Ebstein Barr Virus), depression, fibromyalgia and Hashimotos. However, I felt like there was still something wrong. The pain coursing through my body worsened, and new and unfamiliar symptoms were afflicting me. After years of being told “it was all in my head,” (we’ll talk about that exhausting journey later) I was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease. Since my diagnosis in 2018, I have been studying, researching and trying to learn as much as I can. I honestly probably only retain a fraction of what I read though! Whether you wanna call it brain fog or Lyme brain, the struggle is REAL, ya’ll!
Living with Lyme disease and other chronic illnesses has become a part of my existence, with ever-changing and fluctuating symptoms. I am no longer the girl I used to be. Physical strength, energy, vitality, and independence have all been seized and my confidence is definitely not what it used to be. Having a chronic disease has changed me. But It’s not all bad. I have developed a new strength in the midst of such weakness. My faith has been renewed and strengthened. I have learned more about myself in the last several months than I have in the last 40 years of my life. As much as I despise Lyme Disease, it has awakened a part of me that God has been trying to wake up for a very long time.
The purpose of this blog is to provide hope, inspiration, share what I’ve learned along the way and occasionally show a bit of our adored wanna be farm life. The journey to better health is long, grueling, and often very lonely. Living with a chronic condition often leaves one desperately treading water, barely keeping our heads above the waves. We struggle with pain, neurological issues, and a seemingly endless list of other symptoms that most other people don’t see or understand.
God has put this project on my heart so that I can share my story with others like me. I am still Sharon, a mom, a wife, a daughter, an artist, and a stubborn Southern girl, I just go about it all a little differently. My life has been redirected and derailed from the direction I thought it was supposed to go. But I’m working on being OK with that.