The state of the world looks a little different through the eyes of the sick. Porochista Khakpour would know — she’s been sick most her life, and never really knew it. Rather, she knew she was sick, but the root cause remained unidentified for almost 10 years, during which time she blamed her ever-weakening state of mind and body on the drugs she was using and abusing, the alcohol, her poor romantic choices. Who knew she should, all this time, be blaming her endless hospital visits on one of the most obtrusive unobtrusive creatures there could be: a tick.
In 2015, Khakpour was diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease. This diagnosis was both a relief and a sentencing. There is no cure for Lyme. Most cases go undiagnosed. What irony that Khakpour would wield in her defense the argument that out of so many cases of suspected Lyme disease, hers was one of the few that was actually found and diagnosable. And yet, finally, with the diagnosis came the admission. The truth. A debilitating one, at that. “i’m getting more and more ill very fast,” she said in a heartbreaking email of scattered words on the screen, lowercased i’s, and misspelled words. “i’m scared [. …] i’m not totally sure what i’m asking [. …] i didn’t want you to feel the burden.”