I backslide in my treatment over the last few months.

Not a ton, mind you, but any backslide is still a regression and it wasn’t one I was happy about. But there was still a lot to be thankful for. I still feel way better than I did when I started treatment over two years ago. One more antibiotic is annoying and it makes my stomach hurt, but it’s still less than I was on. I’m still able to work and go about my daily life, and that’s a big deal, because two years ago I could hardly move from my bed to the couch. Plus, now that I’m taking it, I’m starting to steadily make back the ground that I had lost.

But there’s an important thing to point out. The antibiotics are important but, I only feel like they’re working when I’m taking care of myself. It’s a tricky thing, but finding health with Lyme is a fine balance of taking care of yourself and taking your pills. I find that the pills allowed me the ability care for myself by helping reduce my pain and my fatigue, but without the diet, the exercise, and natural treatments, I might as well still be sick.

It brings me back to all the lessons on health I had learned before Lyme Disease.

We push aside daily wellness when we’re healthy enough. When we don’t have a chronic illness, when we don’t have a disease, or a disorder. Our bodies are functioning and that’s enough for us, we don’t feel like we need to do all the extra work for them to be at their best, because good enough is good enough.

It has a lot to do with our own laziness, our own gluttony, and all the pleasure we find in things that aren’t very healthy to us. It really dawned on me after a few weeks of giving this lifestyle my all so I could get better. I thought “when will I be better enough to stop all of this?”

That’s right, I wanted to know when will I would be better enough to stop being healthy.

The answer really is never. We know what we need to do to take care of our bodies. We know what they need, how to give it to them, and yet, we don’t give them it. We ignore them and all the health experts, because “good enough is good enough” and it is, until it’s not. Then you get where I am, pouring my all into it for years instead of starting with a strong foundation or getting started earlier in my illness when I could of reversed it easier. I spent two years on the couch. Maybe I could have knocked it down to months. Hell, I would have taken a year.

When it comes to our health good enough isn’t good enough. We really need to focus on getting to good, great, and amazing.

Our bodies are amazing, they are fighting for us constantly and they heal from some unimaginable things. Even though I got so sick I could hardly stand in the shower, I learned to appreciate my body in ways I never have. It was constantly fighting this invader in my system. The high fevers were my body trying to smoke it out. It was putting all its energy into healing me, and even if that meant I didn’t have the energy for anything else, it meant I would one day. Every time I gave my body an inch with medication or care it tried to take it a mile in healing, because it’s fighting for me more than I’m fighting for it.

They do the same thing when you’re well. We give them an inch, they give us less anxiety, fewer colds, better sleep, less acne, and less aches. Our bodies are meant to be taken care of, and really taken care of, not only paid mind to when they’re sending out distress signals.

Learn from me. Know that this can happen to anyone, and that there comes a time in everyone’s life when our bodies will be the only thing between you and the grave one. You want it to be ready for that fight.