Back to school part 1

My daughter has Lyme disease. It’s something I haven’t written about because generally I try to keep things light and funny and this is not light or funny. But that is for a different post. Throughout my life humor has carried me through any crisis I may encounter and to this day it is my go to in my “toolbox.”

So it is with my “go to” that I had to deal with a relapse of my daughter’s Lyme disease 6 weeks after starting college. My husband and I never had our  “Empty Nester” moment. We never got the opportunity to become those annoying people on Facebook we all talk about. Please do not act like you don’t know who I mean because we all know at least one couple who seem to be living their best life, reliving their childless 20’s. Out every night, drinking and partying all over the country, yeah that’s not me.

Like I said, things started to slide backwards 6 weeks in. The symptoms were a little different but she knew something was off . Because this is 2019 not 1985 every nuance was shared with me, all day long. Let me repeat that… ALL DAY LONG.  My husband and I were parenting somewhere between 1985 and now so we tried the tough love approach. Giving inspiration where we could so that she could push through whatever it was that was bothering her. I was using my Web MD degree to diagnose her from being fine, run down, having strep throat, you name it and I diagnosed her with it. I just could not bring myself to admit that possibly a relapse of Lyme disease was lingering.

At this point she came home for 5 days. We nursed her back to health as well as we could, put her back on a plane and hoped for the best. The hope lasted around 8 hours. Within 24 hours she felt worse than before she left to go back to school. We got her a hotel room to sleep it off, that did not help so the next 24 hours were spent getting her a flight home 48 hours after she left.

So, now she’s home and we are right back to where we were a year ago. Except now I have a college freshman asking me “why is this happening to me?” Internally I was asking myself the same question. Not really seeing any humor yet.

It’s around the time of this conversation that the humor and irony starts to kick in. As we are driving home from the infrared sauna (another perk of Lyme disease) I hit a deer. In all my life I have never come close to hitting a deer but here I am driving my daughter, who should not be with me, home from this sauna all because she got a bite from a deer tick and now I hit a deer.

I’m pretty sure the deer itself had Neuro Lyme disease because, and I kid you not, the thing basically flung itself in front of my car.  All I saw were antlers and its face, so once I heard the thud I swerved into oncoming traffic to avoid it more (or so I thought) and then had to swerve back due to oncoming traffic. You know that expression deer in headlights?  I get it now.

I could not get the idea out of my mind that because of a deer I was in this situation with my daughter and  yet the idea that I could have killed a deer (pretty sure I did) was freaking me out. Now my car was destroyed now as well, another fabulous thing Lyme disease has given me.

So it was with great irony I thought that the next day when I look out my front door I saw this. I wish I could say this was joke but sadly no its just my life. So now I am left  wondering: Is this some ticked off relative (no pun intended), Did the guy I hit follow me home? Is this some deer ritual ?  I was half expecting to see MURDERER spray painted on the hood of my now wrecked car. If you zoom in you can see he was clearly staring me down, obviously mad that I took out a member of his team so close to the holidays.  And all I could think is how many freakin’ ticks is he letting loose all over my lawn?