Getting Back into the Flow

About a month ago, my eyes started to give me big-time problems. I started using a new computer screenwriting software and, due to its smaller and lighter courier font, it strained my eyes and then suddenly my reading glasses prescription stopped working for me altogether. Although the software triggered the problems, I don't think my eyes were great to begin with. I think the Lyme made them weaker and overly sensitive and all it took was one gentle push from some new software to drive them over the edge.

I had to wait a couple of weeks to get an appointment with my eye doctor and in those two weeks I could not read anything, write anything or watch anything. Okay, I could maybe use a computer for maybe seven or so minutes but anything beyond that would cause my eyes to feel strained in a major way.

Of course, having eye issues was the last thing I needed because Lyme had made it difficult for me to pretty much do most everything else, especially things that involved physical activity, so I was mostly forced to stay solitary inside my house most of the time, with some exceptions, depending on how good or bad I felt at the given moment. Throughout the worst of the Lyme, I felt fortunate that I could at least watch TV and/or movies on my laptop/Kindle, read, and most importantly, I could still write! I always said to myself, "Man, this all really sucks right now, but things could be worse. At least I can write!"

But then, suddenly, the ability to write was taken away from me as well. And I couldn't read! I couldn't watch anything, either! I felt like Job, the Biblical character. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, boom, they got worse! Almost everything I enjoyed doing was taken away from me! Was I going to go insane?

Well, you would think that the solution would be easy. I would go to the eye doctor, they would change my prescription, and, abra-ka-dabra, my eyes would work again and all would be swell.

Not quite the case.

First of all, as I mentioned, I had to wait a couple weeks for my appointment. I was cool with that, though. Fortunately, some energy had returned to me and I figured all I was able to do was clean and organize and, boy, I needed to do that really bad. My bedroom was a dusty mess and nothing about my life was organized. I spent a good solid two weeks doing nothing but getting my life in order. So I made the best out of what I was able to do. I figured God gave me eye problems because I needed to clean up my act. I probably wouldn't have cleaned otherwise.

Two weeks went by quickly enough and then came the eye appointment, which went fine, but it was after the appointment that I felt like I had entered some sort of bizarre, Twilight-Zone-esque hell. Said "hell" officially started when I decided to go to a LensCrafters located at a mall 30 minutes away from me, a mall called The Emerald Square.

Ok, it wasn't quite "hell". I'm being dramatic. It was more like unlucky chaos -- that's the better way to put it. Or, to put it more succinctly, it felt like disharmony. Yes, it was the feeling of being out of sync and out of harmony with the universe, a feeling I had experienced more and more ever since the Lyme got its claws into me. Does that make sense? In short: it's the feeling that nothing is going right. God, Source, the Universe, whatever you want to call it, is distant from you. And that's not because God has forsaken you; it's because Lyme, that nasty negative energy, has created an obstruction between you and God. It has thrown the harmony of your energy field, your aura, your chakra, your meridian -- whatever word you prefer to use -- off kilter, out of harmony with the universe.

To put this yet another way, let's say ordinary life has a flow to it; on some days, a really good day, that flow is great and on some other days, really bad days, that flow is not-so-great. But, in general, life has a decent flow to it because it is, in general, in harmony with God. Take a disease like Lyme, however, with its negative energy and there is a disruption with that flow. This negative energy is kind of at war with the positive energy that God embodies and its mission is to sever your ties with God as best it can. Now it makes sense, right? Sorry, this was a brief but necessary tangent. You'll eventually see how this is all relevant.

Anyway, I thought LensCrafters would be the best place to go for my glasses. They're known to provide one-hour service, so I figured, I'd go there and, boom, after an hour, I would have new glasses that would make everything swell again.

Boy, I was mistaken.

As it turned out, my eye doctor had written up a prescription for "progressive" (i.e. multi-focal) lenses. At first, the people at LensCrafters planned on converting the prescription into a single-vision reading glasses lens since my distance prescription required only a minor adjustment (my eye doctor said my distance was excellent). I later found out that this was a common thing to do and, furthermore, an easy thing to do but, for some reason, the people at LensCrafters acted as though this would involve some intricate mathematics.

I told the technician that I was experiencing difficulties watching TV so he said maybe I wanted to try the progressives, as trouble watching TV would indicate that I did, indeed, need the adjustment with my distance. Despite the higher cost for progressives, I figured I should probably give them a try since watching TV had been a problem for at least a few years.

So I picked out a nice pair of frames and the technician fit me for a new pair of progressive lenses. Unfortunately, I thought I'd be able to pick up the glasses in an hour but the technician said it would take 10-14 days! This was extremely unfortunate but, I figured, hell, I could do some more cleaning and, after ten days or so, I would have glasses that made my eyes work again and I'd be good as gold.

I went home and, about an hour or two after I was home, LensCrafters called and told me my glasses were all ready to be picked up. Hmmm. Okay, that was not 10-14 days. That wasn't even 10-14 hours. That was about a couple of hours, maybe three. Did they really need me to go all the way home? Whatever. I wasn't too flustered about it. I was just glad my glasses were ready and I'd be able to watch, write and read again!

That next day, I made the trip back to The Emerald Square Mall, picked up my glasses, took them home and...

I pretty much immediately felt that something wasn't quite right about them. See, progressives, if you don't know, are divided into three sections. The top portion is for distance viewing (like driving), the middle of the lens is for mid-range viewing (like computer work) and the very bottom portion is for reading. The distance portion of the lens seemed okay. But I could not work on the computer very easily, like at all, and reading anything was damn near impossible. In fact, there hardly seemed to be any room at the bottom of the lens for me to read with.

This was my first pair of progressives, however, so I didn't know if the problems I was experiencing were normal. I gave the situation a good day, still experienced problems, called LensCrafters to voice my concerns and they told me I needed to give myself a good couple of weeks to adapt before I should start worrying.

I heeded their advice but, by about a week into it, I was still experiencing problems so I went back to the Emerald Square Mall (trip #3), walked into LensCrafters, had two different people mark up my glasses and they ultimately concluded that everything was fine, no adjustment was needed. The woman there assured me that I just needed to adapt. She also reminded me that there was a 30-day guarantee, which meant I had a 30-day trial period to adapt to the glasses. If I didn't adapt to them in the 30 days, I could return the glasses and try single-vision glasses. All this made me feel more comfortable with everything. I figured I would eventually adapt and all would be dandy.

However, as time went on, I still had problems and, still, something didn't feel right. I knew going back to LensCrafters would get me nowhere so I decided to check in with my eye doctor and have them triple-check that everything was ok.

Honestly, I was expecting my eye doctor to say everything was fine but at least I would have peace of mind knowing that it was just me having trouble getting used to progressives. I was surprised, however, when a technician at the doctor's office marked up the lenses and said that there were two significant issues with the glasses. The first issue was that the "seg line" (the line on the lens where the distance portion ends and the mid-range/computer portion begins) was too low and the second issue was that the "measurements were uneven" in the two lenses. She told me, "No wonder why you're having problems!" These were no minor issues. These were major.

Back to LensCrafters I went, for a fourth time in two weeks. I told them what the eye doctor said and they re-checked everything again and finally admitted there was a significant problem. See, at LensCrafters they do digital fitting. This involves placing some gadgets on your frames, you look into a camera, a picture is taken and a computer "digitally fits" your frames and lenses to your face/eyes, I guess so humans can do less work and therefore be paid less. I remember the tech who initially "digitally-sized" me not really knowing what he was doing and, apparently, my head was raised too high when he took the photo. This threw all the measurements off. At LensCrafters, they treat their "digital sizing" machine as a god, but it appears as though it's very easy for their god to be completely wrong...at least when the human doesn't take the photo correctly to begin with...so maybe they need another computer to take the photo...thus eliminating any human error completely...but, alas, I digress.

Fortunately, they had my lenses in stock and they were able to make the adjustments in about an hour.

The second pair of glasses...

Was better. A little better.

I could tell that they had fixed the problem. I had a good amount of reading area at the bottom of the lens to read with in a relatively comfortable manner but the key word there is "relatively", because reading a novel, for example, was still very uncomfortable an experience.

As far as computer use went, I was still having a difficult time and as far as the distance went? Well, now the "seg line" seemed like it may have been a little too high because it felt like I had to tilt my head down when I walked and especially when I drove. In fact, driving was the most uncomfortable activity to do. If I tilted my head up, even a little bit, everything would get blurry so I felt like I had to angle my head down at the road but this, of course, caused strain in my neck.

I thought I could maybe get used to the driving issues -- maybe I simply had to retrain my neck muscles -- but the computer use was going to be a problem because I use my computer A LOT and if I didn't have a comfortable way of using the computer I was going to have major problemos.

Lacking trust in LensCrafters, I called my eye doctor again to see if they could check over the new pair of glasses. When I called them, the secretary gave me a bit of a hard time:

"So you're having us check over the work that LensCrafters is doing?"

"Well, I got the prescription from you but..."

"All I'm saying is that maybe you should get your glasses made with us in the future. Just throwing that out there."

I felt like an ass, told her the point was taken, but she said, if I brought the glasses in, somebody would take a look at them.

So, I sheepishly brought them in, a technician gave them a look, checked the accuracy of the prescription, and she concluded that the glasses were properly made. This made me feel better because I figured this was all MY problem, I needed to give myself time to adapt to the progressives, and then things would finally be harmonious in my universe once again.

Over the next week or two, I did start to adjust a bit. But using the computer was borderline ridiculous. All I could see on the screen was one little circular area where things looked in focus, but everything in the surrounding area gradually went out of focus. For example, if I wanted to read a paragraph of text, I would literally need to move my head from side to side in order to keep everything in focus. Normally, we move our eyes back and forth but I had to move my head like I was some sort of robot.

I finally thought it was time that I better give LensCrafters another call. It was almost three weeks into my 30-day trial and I needed to make sure these glasses were going to work for me. I asked the girl on the other end of the phone if what I was experiencing with my computer use was normal. She said, "Well...to an extent. You may want to come in here and get things checked out." I hung up, sighed and I knew another trip to LensCrafters was in my destiny.

It was trip #5.

I spoke to the manager this time around, a young, spiffy-looking gentleman. I repeated what I had told the girl on the phone and, again, asked him if what I was experiencing was "normal"? Unlike the girl I spoke to, the young man confidently nodded his head and said things were perfectly normal. He showed me a diagram on his tablet and the diagram showed me that there were various areas of distortion within the progressive lenses. I still don't quite understand why these distorted areas need to be there but the distortion explained why I only saw a circular area of focus while I worked on the computer. There is apparently no distortion in the distance portion of the lens, a good deal of distortion in the bottom reading area and a much greater deal of distortion in the mid-range, computer area.

Okay, I once again felt somewhat relieved knowing that all was normal with my lenses and I simply needed more time to adapt.

But the relief didn't last too long, mainly because I still wasn't adapting. A few more days went by and I realized I had less than a week left of my 30 day guarantee, so if these lenses weren't going to work for me, I needed to return them and get something better before the 30 days were up!

Thus ensued many restless nights of sleeping and I'm not joking here. My mind raced like a madman. "Should I keep the progressives? Should I return them? What if I never adapt to the progressives? What if I return the progressives, get two different pairs -- one for distance and one for reading -- but realize that's a pain in the ass and the progressives would've been better?" Time was running out. "What should I do? Keep them? Return them?" I kept on going back and forth and my mind couldn't stop obsessing over it. As soon as I made up my mind that I would return them, I would change my mind and decide to keep them. As soon as I decided to keep them, I would think of a good reason to return them. I went back and forth, back and forth, and I couldn't stop doing this. I never, ever, in my wildest dreams would've thought that getting glasses would cause me to nearly go insane, but that's exactly what was happening. Then again, when you think about it, it's usually something very petty that drives us over the edge when we're already so close to that edge to begin with (Lyme disease got me pretty close to the edge).

Ultimately, I came up with the bright idea of asking for an extension to my 30-day guarantee. I figured this guarantee would be warranted because I really only had two weeks to adapt to a "properly made" pair of glasses. The first two weeks of my guarantee should not have counted since they goofed on making that first pair, goofed so much that the glasses were essentially useless.

Thus, I called LensCrafters, spoke to the manager, told him my situation, asked if my guarantee could be extended two weeks and he said the best he could do was extend my guarantee two days. Yes, two whole days. Not weeks. Thanks?

After much more restless sleep, stress and headaches (I literally developed intense headaches over this), I eventually decided to go back down to LensCrafters (sixth trip), return my progressives and get two different pairs of single-vision  glasses, one for distance and the other for reading. I figured that at least this would give me another 30 days to try out what it would be like having two pairs of glasses. If that was a gargantuan pain in the ass, I could always return those and get the progressives all over again. Of course, I know what I just said sounds absolutely absurd but this whole eyeglasses saga had already exceeded the level of absurdity long ago and so I wasn't ashamed of taking things to even absurder heights.

So, there I was...sixth time at LensCrafters...I returned the progressives, picked out one more pair of frames (I was using my progressive frames for distance but I needed one more pair of frames for reading) and, alas, all was going well. Had I finally shaken off all the disharmonious Lyme juju disrupting the flow in my life? Were things finally going to go smoothly now from this point forward? Had I finally entered back into a state of harmony with God?

No. Not quite yet.

My harmonious flow was disrupted when the check I was paying with did NOT go through. There was no logical reason for this to happen, either. I had used the same check there before and that went through fine. However, this time, the computer rejected the check. No insufficient funds. No driver's license expiration. Nope. The computer just decided to reject it. No reason.

I did not have any other way of paying for the glasses. See, my credit card wasn't exactly what a financial expert would refer to as "valid" and, overall, I was poor...like, extremely poor. Now, I'm usually pretty poor in general but Lyme disease made me flat-out broke because I could hardly do any normal jobs since doing even small forms of physical activity made me very sick. Currently, as I write this, a company owes me thousands of dollars for video marketing work I did for them, but let's just say they've been slow paying me, which isn't exactly uncommon for an independent contractor like myself, but that's not important right now anyway. Bottom line: when I was at LensCrafters, I was flat-lined broke. 

Fortunately, LensCrafters allowed me to take my distance glasses home because those were technically paid for with store credit. As far as the reading glasses went, they had to put those aside until I came back with another form of payment. I did not acquire this other form of payment until three days later. It was cash.

Money in hand, I returned to LensCrafters (7th trip), gave them my cash...BUT...I also changed my order, just a tad. I know, I know: why would I want to further complicate things? But, trust me, I had no choice. See, I had previously decided that I wanted my reading glasses to have "Blue IQ" (i.e. blue-light protection), which meant they had a special coating on the lenses that would protect my eyes from harmful blue UV light emitted from computers and other digital devices like phones or tablets. The problem was that it took 10-14 days to have "Blue IQ" glasses made where non-Blue-IQ glasses only took an hour. By this point in the game, I did not want to wait another 10-14 days for my glasses because I was afraid my eyes would continue to get strained and I also thought I would go insane if I wasn't able to read or write anything for another two weeks.

Long story short, the LensCrafters sales lady edited my order, but, for some reason, the bill ended up being even higher than before. Without the Blue IQ, it should have been cheaper...but now it was...higher? Strange. 

I questioned this higher bill and the lady said it was higher because she gave me the "anti-scratch" lenses. Puzzled, I asked what kind of lens I had before [I changed the order], to which she somewhat suspiciously stumbled with her words a bit and said she would downgrade me to the lower-quality lens but the word "downgrade" made me scared so I said it's all fine and I just paid for the bill, even though it was higher than before. At the time, I shrugged my shoulders and trusted her but I later found out that she had bumped me up to the highest "premium" upgrade, which gave me anti-scratch/anti-smudge lenses in addition to anti-reflection, which was a higher quality lens in itself but not as high as anti-scratch. See, all I had wanted from the beginning was anti-reflection, which cost fifty bucks more than normal lenses but fifty bucks less than anti-scratch/smudge lenses. Now, if all this sounds super-complicated and confusing to you, you're not alone. The bottom line is that the sales lady slyly tried to throw in another fifty-dollar upgrade onto the bill, I guess so she could rake in a slightly higher commission. This was one last scorpion sting the store couldn't help but jab me with before I left for good (correction: hopefully for good). That was the store's nature. It couldn't let my final trip to LensCrafters be straightforward. It had to sting me one last time. That's what a scorpion does. And LensCrafters is a scorpion. At least this one seemed to be, anyway. Heck, it wasn't even LensCrafters, really. It was the energy of Lyme stinging me. Yes, it was the energy of Lyme that brought me to LensCrafters, created the absurd eyeglasses saga and then took one last sting at me as I tried to finally walk away from it all.

Anyway, as I write this, it's been almost a week since I got the distance glasses and about three or four days since I've gotten the readers. The glasses themselves seem to be ok, meaning the prescriptions seem right and they seem to do what they're supposed to etc. They weren't made improperly. No errors in the digital sizing. No human errors...

That all being said, my eyes are still not that wonderful, though using a computer is more or less doable once again. There is no doubt in my mind that the issues with my eyes can be attributed to Lyme or at least some facet of my illness but I at least wanted to get the right pair of glasses with the right prescription etc. and I think I'm at that point right now. I still wonder if I could've gotten a better pair of progressives at a different opthalo-mola-whala-hoo-hoo place. Who knows, I may still try another place and return these current glasses, but for now they will do.

Now, I want to apologize if this entire blog sounded like one long, whining rant. You may be saying, "Man, he's dwelling on all the negativity in his life. He needs to start thinking with positive thoughts!" Yes, this is true. I must start thinking with positive thoughts and things will, indeed, go more smoothly. My point, however, is to show that the disharmony in my life of late, ever since I got sick, has been on an absurd level. It's been VERY difficult for things to go smoothly and, as I mentioned before, I truly feel that the disharmony in my life, the lack of proper flow, can be traced back to the negative, disharmonious energy that is Lyme. What one can learn from all this is a) we take harmony for granted b) we take God for granted and c) it's hard to appreciate God until you see what happens when you are less connected, if not completely disconnected, from Him. And, again, when I say God, I mean Universe, Source energy, whatever you want to call that higher energy or order. 

We take our general flow in life for granted. We take the "order" in our life for granted. We don't realize that, without that "higher power", the order of life starts to crumble and the more nothing seems to ever go right in our lives, the more chaos reigns.

Lyme disease brought CHAOS into my life but, ironically, it was experiencing this feeling of chaos, a feeling unlike any I had ever experienced before, that ultimately, in the long run, brought me all the closer to God. It made me better appreciate God because I experienced the absence (or at least lesser presence) of God. It made me better appreciate harmony and order. It made me respect "the flow".

Lyme-A-Vision

If I were to find a silver lining within my multi-month-long battle with Lyme disease, it would have to be that Lyme gave me an excuse to revisit my long-lost friend, the television, and all the wonderful shows it has to offer, particularly during the daytime hours. Indeed, not since I was a young child have I ever watched so much television. Throughout much of my illness, watching TV was the only activity I had the energy to do. Here are some of the shows and channels I discovered and also rediscovered:


1. Seinfeld

Seinfeld was neither a new discovery of mine, nor was it a rediscovery. I've always watched copious re-runs of Seinfeld, but I watched all the more episodes while I was sick. There were a couple of reasons for this. Reason one: Seinfeld is a great show, probably my favorite show (or at least sitcom) of all time. Reason two: Seinfeld acted as a comfort blanket for me, especially during the times when I felt horrible. The silliness of the comedy lightened my heavy situation. Maybe the show also reminded me of better times when I wasn't sick. Or maybe it was simply something familiar that helped ground me and made me feel closer to life and, thus, further away from death. I'm not sure how to describe it, exactly, but the worse I felt, the more I wanted to watch Seinfeld. And I know there was a psychological reason behind this; I'm just having trouble articulating it.


2. MeTV

I had already been familiar with MeTV before I was sick but Lyme disease deepened my relationship with this retro-TV channel and also led me to discover even more treasures within its episode lineup. My most notable discovery was that MeTV had back-to-back episodes of Saved by the Bell, starting at 10am Sunday mornings and running until noon. In other words, that's two hours, four whole episodes of Saved by the Bell, each Sunday morning.

It's been more than six months now since Lyme disease sunk its claws into me and I've been watching Saved by the Bell every Sunday morning ever since. I friggin' LOVE Saved by the Bell and I practically know every single episode by heart. Like Seinfeld, Saved by the Bell has been another "comfort show" that helped me escape the miseries of Lyme disease. It's undoubtedly a goofy show and many of the jokes and/or situations make you cringe with discomfort due to the absolute cheesiness of it all but, let's face it, this was a funny, well-written show for what it was, which was a show for tweens and teens. Apparently, it was also good enough for grown men in their mid-30s as well. Or maybe I only enjoy it for nostalgic reasons. Not sure...

Saved by the Bell is immediately followed by The Brady Bunch, which runs as back-to-back episodes for another couple hours on Sunday afternoons. Then, even later into the afternoon, there is The Facts of Life, Different Strokes, The Love Boat...the fun never stops on MeTV.

I consider MeTV to be a hidden treasure of Xfinity cable television because the channel number is located way up in the 900 boonies, not anywhere close to any of the "normal" TV stations like ABC, TBS, TNT, MTV etc. The 900 channel area truly is a no-man's-land but MeTV is only ONE of the hidden gems to be discovered...


3. Buzzr

BUZZR is another hidden treasure buried in the 900 channel tundra. It's a game show channel that only shows -- yes, you got it -- reruns of game shows, all day, every day. My introduction to Buzzr was via an episode of Family Feud, which I stumbled upon one evening while scanning through the 900 channels. It was an old episode of the family game show, from the late 1970s or early 1980s. Richard Dawson was the host or, as I like to call him, Mr. Kissy-Face (I guess his official nickname was the "Kissing Bandit"). I call him Mr. Kissy-Face because part of his hosting schtick was to kiss all the women on the lips before it was their turn to guess what the survey said. It didn't matter what age they were, either. Back then, this was considered part of Richard's charm. Today, most people would consider it creepy and, of course, no game show host would get away with being Mr. Kissy-Face what with the whole #metoo and #timesup movement that's going on. We've definitely made progress as a society but I can't help but admit that I want to see another Mr. Kissy-Face on TV. I know it just can't happen but, deep inside of me, I want to see another creepy game show host stealing kisses from all the ladies, old and young.

Mr. Kissy-Face Richard Dawson stealing kisses.

By the way, Richard Dawson, Mr. Kissy-Face himself, played a game show host villain in an awesome Arnold Schwarzenegger movie called THE RUNNING MAN (1987). He was absolutely fantastic, too. It was a stellar performance. I just thought I would mention that. No, I needed to mention that. Mr. Kissy-Face had range. Sadly, he died in 2012.

Anyway, Buzzr has since become a go-to TV channel for me. The channel as a whole gives off a very comfortable vibe. No, not comfortable: cozy. It makes you feel cozy. In fact, this is true for all the 900 channels, including MeTV, Decades, Laff, Buzzr and, golly, there's even a channel that has a full line-up of classic TV shows from the 1950s-1990s called Cozi TV. Coziness is what "they", the TV people, want you to find in the 900 no-man's land. It's such a different vibe from the prime-time channels what with their negative news and shallow TV content filled with sex and violence. I don't know about you, but when I'm sick, I want coziness. I want Munsters, Beverly Hillbillies, Lost In Space, Night Court, Empty Nest and, yes, I especially want Mr. Kissy-Face creeping out all the girls!

Ah, the 900 channels. It's like they exist in another dimension or some other time. They are for the sick, the injured and the old people. I love them. I can't get enough of them. God bless the 900 channels.


4. AMC - American Movie Classics

AMC often runs movie marathons on Friday afternoons. During my battle with Lyme disease, I watched Karate Kid Marathons, Rambo marathons and also National Lampoon Vacation marathons. 

Also, for some reason, AMC played the movie The Fugitive pretty much all the time. The Fugitive with Harrison Ford never gets old and, for whatever reason, it's a great movie to watch when you're sick. Again, maybe for me it's the "familiar" factor, since I have watched the movie probably a few dozen times since it was released in the early 1990s. Also, there was probably a nostalgic factor: i.e. this movie reminded me of better (non-sick) times. It was a security blanket I could cling onto while my world was crumbling beneath me.

Speaking of the nostalgic factor, while watching First Blood: Part Two (i.e. Rambo II), I suddenly found myself wanting to play with action figures. This wasn't a subtle desire, either. It was like a button was pushed inside me and I suddenly had an intense urge to go play with action figures. What I realized is that this was a Pavlovian-like response to the Rambo movie because, when I was young (around kindergarten area), I watched Rambo II obsessively and I recreated all the scenes with action figures, mostly G.I. Joe's, but also with a few official Rambo action figures as well. I hadn't watched Rambo II in years and it was amazing to see how my inner child immediately came out of hibernation and wanted to find action figures ASAP.


5. Freeform

I consider Freeform to be a freak phenomenon because it seems to show great movies all the time and it almost seems a little too good to be true. It used to be The Family Channel and I also learned that it is contractually bound to show a certain amount of religious programming in a given day. This is why, if you look at the programming schedule, you will see several hours blocked off as the "700 club" which is, I guess, religious programming.

In July, FreeForm played a Home Alone marathon that I enjoyed very much. It also played the movie Elf a little too much. When actual Christmas season came along, you could find National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation playing at least once a day.

One Saturday morning, I saw that Hook was on and, boy, that movie transported me way back to the 1990s. The music from Hook pressed a button deep inside me that almost made me cry. I longed for the 90s. I wanted my long-lost inner child back. In fact, that seemed to be a common theme throughout being sick: the longing for and, to some extent, the reawakening of my inner child.

6. The View

I had never watched The View before, mainly because, well, why would I unless I was sick? However, this was a show I stumbled upon towards the beginning of my Lyme illness and I watched it, mainly because I didn't have the energy to find anything better.

My thoughts regarding The View are as follows: the show is somewhat disturbing to me. Basically, it involves a handful of women, sitting at a desk, and they bash Trump for about an hour. The leader of this group is Whoopi Goldberg and is so anti-Trump that she can't even say his name; she just calls him "the new guy". Whoopi conveys an appearance of the wise old village elder but nothing I ever hear her say sounds very enlightening to me. Don't get me wrong: I loved Sister Act, but she is the leader of a group of women who program the minds of millions of people with their (one-sided) point of view. They usually have one Right-leaning woman vs. four other Left-leaning women, but even their Right-leaning woman is still very anti-Trump. It's all fine and well to be anti-Trump, pro-Trump, Left or Right-leaning etc., but The View's point-of-view is so one-sided that it doesn't get viewers to think freely with multi-sided opinions.

Plus, Whoopi is a product of our pseudo-intellectual culture where public figures like Oprah, Ellen, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz etc. are considered members of our intelligentsia, the "deep" thinkers whom we should listen to. I don't think they're deep thinkers and, for the most part, I don't find that they're usually worth listening to either.

7. People's Court

For the first two or three months of being sick, People's Court became part of my morning routine. This guilty-pleasure show is enjoyable because, for the most part, both the plaintiffs and defendants are low-life losers. Okay, there are some exceptions and I don't mean to be harsh but let's face it: the people on that show are, for the most part, low-life losers. Watching these low-life losers sue a tenant for a hundred-dollars-worth of unpaid rent or a cleaner for a 50-dollar-pair of shrunken slacks makes you feel better about yourself and your current lot in life. This is what I call the Jerry Springer phenomenon. Why is a show like Jerry Springer so popular? Because you watch the show and realize, man, my life's really not too bad after all. At least I'm better than those losers on that show.

Also, on an unrelated note, I had no idea that Harvey Levin was on People's Court. I only knew him from TMZ. In short, Harvey makes me nervous. He either has an unnatural amount of high energy, drinks lots of caffeine or snorts copious amounts of coke. His job on the show is to interview random people on the street outside the courthouse and I always feel nervous for those people because I know Harvey is looking for quick, succinct answers. I know I would freeze up, not know what to say, and Harvey would make me feel like an ass. This is why watching him do his interviews makes me nervous.

8. Jeopardy

I had watched Jeopardy before I was sick but it was more on the occasional side. Once I was sick, Jeopardy became a show I watched on a nightly basis. I felt that it helped keep my mind sharp while the Lyme disease was making my brain oh so foggy. It was always a relief to find that I could get many of the answers right because this meant that my mind was still, more or less, intact. There were times throughout the illness where I thought I was literally losing my mind. Jeopardy helped reassure me that my mind was still there and my brain hadn't been significantly damaged.

Also, I've come to the realization that Jeopardy may be one of the rare TV shows out there that is actually educational and good for you to watch. It's also one of the last shows out there that doesn't rely on fluff and razzle-dazzle to keep people watching. What I mean is that Jeopardy is mostly all-business. The show starts promptly at 7:30pm and they get right into answering questions after only a very brief introduction. After the first commercial break, Alex Trebek takes a few minutes to interview the guests but then it's right back into the questions and A LOT of questions are crammed into the 30-minute time slot.

In other words, Jeopardy doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator. It doesn't dumb us down. It doesn't insult our intelligence. No jazzy graphics, music or other special effects. Again, no fluff. It's perhaps the one last remaining classy TV show out there.

9. Full House

Like Saved by the Bell, Full House is another childhood favorite show of mine. More comfort TV. More familiarity. More nostalgia, etc.

Full House was one of those shows with reruns that would be on TBS at, you know, 4:05 and 4:35 during the 1990s. I never knew why TBS did that, by the way, meaning why they started their shows five minutes past the hour/half-hour. Were they just trying to be unique? Was that part of their marketing strategy? "Hey, if we start our shows -- not at 4:00 -- but at 4:05, maybe more people will tune into our channel"?

Anyway, I rediscovered Full House on Nick at Nite. I believe there are (or at least were) back-to-back episodes from 9:00 to 11:00 at night. This may have changed of late because the Hallmark Channel recently acquired the rights to have Full House reruns on their channel. Which brings me to...

10. The Hallmark Channel

During the worst of times, I craved mindless (and, when I say mindless, I mean extremely mindless) entertainment and I must admit Hallmark movies sometimes provided the mindless, predictable escape I was looking for. What amazes me about the Hallmark channel is a) the volume of movies it pumps out all the time and b) the quality of these movies. Now, by "quality" I mean in terms of production value. The photography looks so bright, colorful and appealing to the eyes. It amazes me that so much money and effort is put into these movies that are really, at the end of the day, mindless wastes of time.

All right, maybe I'm being a little harsh but let's face it, folks: the writing is good and they can be a bit funny, but Hallmark movies are all cut out from the same cookie-cutter blueprint and you will never, ever gain anything from them whatsoever. These movies are two hours of beautiful photography but they are a letdown because we are are the same person after the movie as we were before the movie. In short, watching a Hallmark movie is a completely static experience.

I guess watching Hallmark movies is the equivalent of reading romance novels so I guess there's nothing wrong with that. I do find myself superficially entertained by many of the Hallmark movies but I also find it interesting to experience my innate desire to take something away from these movies when there is really nothing to be taken away. In fact, I almost get a headache watching The Hallmark Channel because my brain is trying so hard to take something, ANYTHING, away, but it never happens and that causes pain in my Gulliver.

Clearing Lyme

In a previous chapter (Lyme Brain), I referred to Lyme as a disease that not only has a physical component to it (i.e. the actual borrelia spirochete) but also a spiritual component. Using analogies from the Netflix show Stranger Things, I compared Lyme to the “Shadow Monster” that lurks in the “Upside Down” dimension. In other words, the Lyme is an actual negative energy and a battle with Lyme is almost like a battle between positive energy and negative energy. This would mean that you’ve only won half the battle if you’ve treated the physical component of Lyme with medication or vitamin supplements. If Lyme is an actual negative energy, then physical medications and vitamins are powerless against it. Something else must be done. But what?

Well, I started doing some Googling to see if I got any hits that would confirm my suspicions about Lyme and its energetic properties. Specifically, I Googled “clearing Lyme from my energy field” and I stumbled upon an excerpt from a book. The book was called Clear Your Way to Freedom: The Key to Unlocking Your Whole Healing by Rachael Bleau. In the excerpt, the author discussed how she did energy healing and had a client who had Lyme for more than ten years. This healer was able to locate the actual energy of the Lyme that was hiding out in one of the client’s bodily cells, remove it, and replace the cell with positive energy. Her client ultimately ended up being 100 percent Lyme-free and also 100 percent symptom-free. After years of trying drug after drug and supplement after supplement, it was this energetic healing that ultimately brought her the complete healing she needed.

Needless to say, the book sounded very intriguing. I ended up ordering it on Amazon and I read it in full within a couple of days. I found the concept extremely interesting. Could many—if not all—chronic diseases just be a stubborn ball of negative energy that must be removed from our bodies? Conventional drugs and vitamins are certainly necessary, but is energy healing that one last step we must take to reach a state of normalcy again?

I was willing to give energy healing a try. And, believe it or not, I already knew how to perform such a healing…sort of. About 15 years ago, my family started seeing a “health coach”. This “health coach” was a dietician, a homeopathic therapist and also a Reiki master. Initially, my family and I started seeing her for allergies but then we eventually started getting Reiki treatments as well. These treatments consisted of her “clearing” certain allergies from our bodies or also thought-patterns, traumas, insecurities or any other negative energies that weren’t in our highest and best interest to “have with us” at the time.

I personally saw this “health coach” for a variety of issues, mainly allergies, but she cleared me of all different things, like antibiotics I had taken in the past, as well as vaccines. She also cleared negative thought-patterns I had. She even cleared me of a pneumonia-causing bacteria (mycoplasma) I had inhaled via sawdust.

Anyway, at a certain point down the line, my “health coach” taught me how to clear negative energies on my own. This way, I didn’t have to see said health coach whenever I had picked up something negative. I could feel empowered knowing I had the power to rid myself of the energy, all on my own. 

The clearing method she taught me involved a pendulum, a bathroom sink and also a few magic words. I’m kind of kidding about the magic words but not completely because there are some special words you must say. Basically, you ask your “higher self” to “please remove any energies that are not in my highest and best interest to have with me at this time.” With one hand you hold the faucet and with the other hand you hold your pendulum. After you say the magic words, the pendulum starts swinging and you wait for it to finish swinging until becoming still again. Once the pendulum is still, the clearing is done.

For the most part, I usually did a general clearing of negative energy; that is, I asked my higher self to identify, disorganize and remove all energies that were not in my highest and best interest to have with me at the time. This would clear my body of any general negative energy I may have picked up while I was out and about in the world. However, you can also be specific about what energy you want cleared. It could be a specific trauma or though-pattern. It could also be a specific virus or disease.

In my current case, I obviously wanted to specifically target Lyme and that’s exactly what I did. Boy, let me tell you, that pendulum started moving like crazy as soon as I said the "magic words". It took about 7-10 minutes for it to stop moving. I thought this was a good sign. If the pendulum was any accurate indication, hopefully a great deal of negative energy was clearing from my body and, using the running faucet as a conductor (only a trickle of water is necessary), the energy was running down the drain and being carried down to the bowels of the earth. That’s how the theory goes, anyway.

I felt a bit lightheaded afterwards, which was normal, but I must say: as the day went on, I felt kind of lighter, like a heaviness in my energy had been lifted. As the days went forward, I could tell I was clearing because I would feel fatigued at times and even have mysterious hotspots on my body. Based on my experiences with clearing in the past, I knew this was normal and I just had to ride it all out.

Gradually, I started to feel less and less 'off' and more and more like myself, kind of like I had won my body back. Of course, it's not like a magic wand was waved and, wa-lah, I was well again. The benefits of the clearing have been gradual.

As I write this, I still seem to be improving, slowly but surely. I do believe clearing Lyme was one more necessary step to take in my healing process, along with the initial antibiotics and subsequent vitamin regimen etc.

The question now is, how far will this clearing take me in my healing? Only time will provide the answer. Patience will be needed, perhaps more patience than I've ever needed in my entire life...

Living in the Lymelight

It’s been about a month now since I started “feeling better”, though when I say “feeling better” I mean I feel more stable and, overall, more comfortable. I still have a day here or there where I feel like I’m going downhill again and, come to mention it, today, as I write this, is one of those days. I went out to a bar last night, only five minutes away from my house, had a total of two beers, chatted for about two hours and then returned home. That was enough to make me feel quite unwell today. In fact, I was worried that I had derailed all my progress. But, come on, you have to live A LITTLE, right?! Two beers and two hours at a bar was something I felt I needed to keep me sane. I’ve hardly been able to leave the house for very long lately, not to mention do much socializing. I needed a little fun...

Okay, I better just admit the beer I drank was on the stronger side. All right, it was twice as strong as normal beer. Technically, it was a Natty Daddy, the father of Natty Ice and also much more potent. So I guess I got what I deserved. No, I don't guess; I know I got what I deserved. I'm kind of an idiot.

Drinking strong beer is definitely not a good idea, that much is clear. But strong beer is really the least of my problems and it's also something that can be easily avoided. My bigger (and more unavoidable) problem right now is physical activity. I still can’t walk much more than about ten minutes with my dog outside. If I go longer, about three hours later I will feel sickly, kind of like poison has been squirted into my bloodstream. I’ve come to the conclusion that there may be an excess of toxins in my muscle tissues and lymph nodes. Lymph detoxification only kicks into action when we exercise or at least do some form of physical activity. My problem seems to be that these toxins get into my blood during physical activity and aren’t being eliminated properly or quick enough. I don’t know if this is because there are too many toxins or because my liver’s weaker than normal, but it seems as though the toxins are getting into my bloodstream and sometimes even going up to my brain. I end up feeling poisoned because, well, I essentially am being poisoned by my own bodily toxins, toxins that would normally be excreted from my body without me ever noticing.

Long story short, I am essentially a physically debilitated individual at the moment and this is frustrating to say the least, especially for a person who is used to being very active. It’s weird going from a person who runs three or four miles every other day to a person who can’t even walk more than ten minutes without feeling like a syringe of Arsenic just got injected into his veins. It’s one thing to be sick with a short-term illness and have to “take it easy” for a while, but this particular illness probably falls into the long(er) term category. After all, it’s already been almost six months since I got sick. This has been a whole new way of living for me. I feel like a bird whose wings have been clipped.

For all of the above reasons, it’s hard not to get depressed. On one hand, I’m alive right now and that’s a great thing, but once you leave survival mode and start living the “new normal”, you start worrying about how long this will all last. There are many ‘what-ifs’. What if this debilitation lasts forever? What if I can’t make enough money? What if I can’t fulfill my dreams?

Basically, it’s never been more important for me to be present in my life. I always knew being present was important but I never really NEEDED to be present…until now. Because, if I do not learn how to be present, there is a good chance that I will have a complete mental breakdown or be completely consumed by depression or both. I must be in the here and now. I can’t be far in the future where I’m worried about being physically limited, never being “normal again”.

I also can’t be in the past and, boy, I’ve been in the past quite a bit lately, almost as much as I’ve been in the future. My mind races over what happened and how I could have possibly avoided it all. “I should’ve avoided the Levaquin! If only I suspected Lyme sooner, I could have nipped this disease in the bud! I shouldn’t have partied so much on Fourth of July weekend and stayed out so late; maybe that weakened my immune system! Maybe I would have fought off the Lyme if my immune system was stronger! I did too much running in the woods where there were tons of ticks! I shouldn’t have done that! Bad idea!”

Of course, I still don’t definitely know where I got the Lyme from in the first place. I never had any ticks on me as far as I knew, at least not at any point close to the start of my symptoms. I think the last time I had been bitten by a tick was about eight months prior to me showing symptoms. Is it possible that the Lyme was dormant for a while and then came out to play after hiding out for several months? According to some websites I’ve perused and books I’ve read, it’s possible. But, then again, my Lyme was “acute”…meaning I had been infected recently, or at least that’s what it’s supposed to mean. Can the Lyme bacterium (the technical word for it is “borrelia burgdorferi”) be dormant and then become actively acute at an opportune time? Maybe I actually DID have the flu in July and that, combined with Levaquin toxicity, weakened my immune system to such an extent that the Lyme could come out and party. Who knows, it might be possible. There’s so much doctors and specialists still don’t know about Lyme.

Or perhaps I had a tick on me and I never noticed. Maybe it was an extremely small one, like the nymph tick that is about the size of a sesame seed. Maybe it bit me, dropped off and it never left a noticeable bite. I certainly never had any “bullseye rash”, which is supposedly the tell-tale indicator of Lyme.

The only other possible explanation is that I contracted the disease from something that wasn’t a tick. This explanation makes the least sense but also the most sense. It makes the least sense because, for the most part, mainstream medical opinion says you can’t get Lyme from anything but ticks. However, it makes the most sense because I was bitten by an insect two days before I started showing Lyme symptoms. Not a deer tick…

But a deer fly.

Indeed, on July 3, I was lawnmowing my neighbor’s lawn and, at one point, I felt a pinch-like sensation in between my left hand’s pinky and index finger. I looked to see what it could be and I saw one of those pesky deer flies digging into my flesh. I’ve been bitten by those bastards before but, this time, I could really feel the fangs digging in. He was getting a good bite in.

I slapped the fly away and I believe I killed it, too, though I don’t remember for sure. All I know is he got a good bite out of me and I didn’t forget it. Two days later is when I started feeling not-so-hot. Two days is about the right amount of time it would take for the Lyme microbe to enter into my system and start giving me symptoms. Could a deer fly have given me the Lyme? If you do some searching online, you will see that some medical professionals out there do believe that you can get Lyme from other insects, including mosquitos, fleas, and flies. So it’s possible. Again, on one hand it seems implausible, but the timeline makes sense. I was bitten by a fly, I took notice, and, boom, two days later I have Lyme symptoms. Maybe it’s coincidence but that’s a large coincidence, if you ask me.

However I contracted the disease, I still can’t help but wonder why or how Lyme can even exist in the first place. I mean, this is a nasty friggin’ disease! How could God allow this nasty, misery-inducing bacteria to wreak havoc in His kingdom?

Well, some theories suggest Lyme isn’t natural, but a man-made biological weapon engineered on Plum Island during the 1950s, not far from the Connecticut town of—that’s right—Lyme, the town where this disease was first discovered or at least first given a name. The supposed plan for this bio “weapon” was to use it against enemies like the Russians. Infected ticks could be dropped into targeted enemy areas via planes or helicopters, spread bacteria and slowly weaken the enemy. At some point, the Lyme infection could have “accidentally escaped” Plum Island via birds that traveled back and forth from the Connecticut mainland. This is how it may have ended up in the town of Lyme and created a suspicious outbreak in the Northeast.

Many scientists, however, dismiss these “conspiracy theories” as hogwash and point out that the Lyme infection has existed for thousands of years. These scientists cite a discovery a team of researchers made in 2012. While studying a 5,300-year-old mummy known as “Otzi the Iceman” who was discovered along the Austria/Italy border in 1991, the researchers concluded that Otzi had, at some point, contracted Lyme. They reached these conclusions through DNA analysis. How 100% accurate the analysis was may be questionable, but, according to the researchers, Otzi was a Lymey.

In his book Unlocking Lyme: Myths, Truths and Practical Solutions for Chronic Lyme Disease, Dr. William Rawls reiterates that Lyme has, indeed, existed forever and has infected humans forever but has only affected humans on a subtle level...that is, until recently. Rawls emphasizes that tests show "Otzi the Iceman" had Lyme, but tests also show he did not die from Lyme; he died from an arrowhead wound. In fact, Otzi was apparently a very physically-active individual at the time of his death, hiking mountains and transporting goods from village to village. This meant the Lyme didn’t physically debilitate him; it was more likely a subtle, if not a completely dormant, infection. In fact, Lyme actually relies on its host to be ACTIVE as opposed to debilitated since the borrelia spirochete depends on its host to be out and about in the world, getting bites from more ticks, which, in turn, spread and prolong the life of the bacteria. Lyme only became a debilitating disease in the past 30 years and Rawls argues that this is because the human immune system has weakened due to the toxins and stress of modern society. In other words, we think Lyme is a new epidemic but it only seems like one because our poorer immune function.

Honestly, I would feel better if Lyme was, in fact, an ancient disease like Dr. Rawls says it is, because the thought of it being an engineered “biological weapon” infuriates me. If I have a disease like Lyme, I want it to be a natural occurrence, not something that was man-made by a bunch of Nazi, Project-Paper-Clip scientists on Plum Island.

Then again, both theories could be true: that is, it could be both an ancient disease but also man-made. What I mean is that Plum Island scientists may have taken a pre-existing disease and harnessed its power into the form of a tick-borne biological weapon. If this is true, I would say that the current outbreak in the Northeast is likely the end-result of this biological weaponry. I would also say that I likely have Lyme due to man-made, not natural, causes.

But who really knows and does it really change anything anyway? Even if I’m a victim of a man-made “weapon” it wouldn’t be the first time somebody’s been a victim of something man-made. I mean, take guns, for example: they’re man-made. Bombs: man-made. Knives: man-made. Humans have been victims of something man-made throughout time so my victimization is nothing exceptional. It’s not like I’m the one unlucky bastard out there who is a victim. Therefore, I should not be upset about being a victim. Rather, I should be accepting of the situation and react to it in a positive way that counteracts the negativity of the victimizing situation. In other words, if I react negatively to a negative situation, it only doubles the strength of the negativity. If I react as positively as I can to a negative situation, I nullify the negativity.

I’ve always believed that nullifying negativity isn’t just in our own personal interests but in the interests of all mankind, society, the world...even the entire universe. In other words, keeping things positive is something that must be done in order to keep the universe healthy. After all, I believe we are all an extension of God and we are all therefore connected to each other, “plugged in” to a gigantic network that is, basically, the universe, which is collectively -- yes, you got it -- God. The more negativity we nullify in our own lives, the more positive energy we send through said network and the healthier the entire universe becomes. So, if there is anything we can do to keep things positive, we should do it. Being a victim doesn’t help ourselves and it doesn’t help the overall universe. Am I going off on a tangent here? Probably.

The point is that victimization has, indeed, been a constant throughout the history of man. Although victimization is unfortunate, it’s not uncommon; in fact, it’s quite common. So, the question we should be asking ourselves isn’t “Why me?” but “How will I react to the victimization?” Will I be depressed? Will I be angry? Or will I deal with it the best I can and move on with life the best I can?

For me, I’ve tried to deal with the victimization, though I must admit it’s been very challenging at times. Not only is it depressing suffering from Lyme in and of itself but Lyme screws up your chemical balancing in such a way that you sometimes unavoidably have depression anyway. It’s a very lonely disease where, for the most part, you have to stay in your home like some reclusive hermit. I can run an errand here and there and maybe hang out with friends for an hour or two at a nearby house or bar, but doing anything bigger than that would require significant physical activity and significant physical activity makes me feel poisoned. The end result is a feeling of being trapped and that is trying on your psyche. It’s difficult to keep it all together on a mental level. This stage of the disease, the post-near-death stage, has been less about physical survival and more about mental survival. This mental battle is almost as harrowing as the physical battle, if not moreso.

But, again, the challenge here is to take one day at a time, to always be present. You don’t start getting depressed or angry until you leave the present, so you must stay present. You must remember that all that exists is the present. The past cannot be changed. Ever. So everything that happened in the past, anything that may or may not have caused your current situation, is irrelevant. And the future hasn’t even happened yet, so any possible situation that may or may not happen in the future is also irrelevant. Again, all that exists is the present moment. The past no longer exists. And the future doesn’t exist, period. The present is all that exists.

Of course, it’s all the more difficult to remain present when those around you are (unintentionally) trying to pull you out of the present. I’m talking about people who are worried about you and your illness. Some of these people may be very close to you like your husband or wife or children or parents or dog or cat. You will feel their worry like it’s a thick, overwhelming fog emanating from them. You can only ignore these people so much. Fighting their pull outside of the present can sometimes be just as difficult a struggle as remaining present in the first place. I honestly don’t know how to deal with this. We possess the power to keep ourselves in the present, but we don’t possess the power to keep others in the present. They mean well, of course, and who wouldn’t be worried about a loved one’s future? But sometimes their worry doesn’t help the situation or the person they’re worried about. In fact, it rarely helps. Staying present is difficult enough but when you add onto it the fight to resist those people who pull you outside the present…well, it’s not easy. It’s oftentimes a very draining process. I guess what I’m saying is that, overall, staying present isn’t easy and I don’t know a full-proof way of being successful at it. I'd like to be one of those people who say, "Stay present," and it's as simple as that. But it's not that simple. It is a battle. Or maybe 'battle' isn't even the proper word. It's an epic war that lasts your whole human experience.