Salveo

Wisconsin, it seems, has two types of roads: in need of construction, and currently under construction. The road to Salveo Holistic Wellness belongs to the former, with patches so bumpy I often worry one of my tires is flat. The town of Oconomowoc is beautiful, though, and worth the half hour of bumps.

Salveo is located on the second floor of an office building. At one of my first appointments, I had to stop twice on my way up the stairs because I was so tired and out of breath. Today, I take them without stopping. I do pause at the top of the stairs to catch my breath, but that's better than where I was a couple of months ago.

When I arrive, Nicole greets me and I settle into the comfortable, leather, patient's chair.

"How are you?" she asks, sitting front of the computer and bio-meridian machine.

"I'm okay," I say, but I'm tired and not having the best week, and she knows it just from looking at me.

"That doesn't sound that great. Tell me what's been happening," she says.

Excluding my family, I rarely tell anyone the reality of my day to day Lyme symptoms and treatment.  I prefer talking about it uninterrupted on my blog, or in letters and texts. I don't really enjoy talking face to face about it, unless I'm talking to someone who has Lyme, or knows something about it. I usually settle for the phrase, "It's up and down, and I'm getting better."

With Nicole there is no hiding. I detail my symptoms and difficulties with my supplement regime. She opens up a document and takes notes, giving feedback about what could be causing what and ideas on how we'll fight it. It is one of my favorite things about her. With other people, talking about Lyme results in the characteristic comment, "Gosh, that must really suck." Nicole, though, will say, "That's awful. Let's figure out a way to help you get past that," and she legitimately cares. If I thought it was a good idea to search for other treatment options she would completely support me because she cares more about me being better than about the money I pay her. She is the best doctor I could have found and I am so grateful for her.

The bio-meridian machine reads my thumb joint for different problems my body is having. The first time I went, I felt like I was in one of those sci-fi movies where they hook the main character up to some machine, and it speaks to them in a smooth, unemotional feminine voice. The bio-meridian machine doesn't actually talk, though. It speaks in beeps, and gives Nicole a visual of the reading. This allows her to prescribe what I need. Granted, I don't actually understand how all of it works. I have learned that even if I don't understand it completely, I know I can trust Nicole, and I can trust the little chirping noises from the machine will help us fight Lyme more efficiently.

The beeps continue in their normal pattern. Then, there's a short squeak. Nicole presses some buttons on her keyboard. The machine squeaks again.

"Huh, that's weird," she says.

"What was that?" I ask.

The machine keeps squeaking.

"I'm looking for Lyme in your system and I can't find it," she says.

I sit up in my chair, and glance at the screen. Normally the reading has a line that goes up and then plateaus. But now it's not doing much of anything.

"Still can't find it," she says.

"What?" I think back over the past couple of weeks. I've had plenty of symptoms. Is the machine broken?

"Hang on," Nicole tells me. The machine continues beeping and chirping as she reads for other things, like my parasites. "Can't find that many parasites either," she says.

This is so strange. Have I just been imagining the past month?

"Oh," Nicole says, looking at a new reading. "You have a ton of biofilm."

I never knew what biofilm was until I started coming to Salveo. Basically, it's this gross sludge that Lyme and parasites can hide behind. It is part of the reason some Lyme tests come out negative, and also why Lyme can be hard to treat. If it's hiding behind something else in my system, the body has a more difficult time attacking it.

Nicole and I laugh, and I feel relieved, oddly enough.

"I knew there had to be some still in there," I say. "I mean, we've only been doing three drops of Lyme Nosode a day."

"I know, that's what I was thinking too." Nicole prescribes a specific plan of attack for the next month: first we'll go after the biofilm for a week, and then we'll hit the Lyme and parasites really hard. "Let's get those suckers while they're fresh," Nicole says, smiling.

On the way out to my car, I laugh again at the thought of not having any Lyme in my system. As ready as I am to not have this illness and be done fighting it, I've also realized that's it's a long journey. If you've had it for a long time, you won't be well within a year, and for some people they keep dealing with symptoms all their life. I don't know if that's going to be me. Nicole doesn't think so, and I trust her judgment. Still, God is changing my perception of this illness. Yes, I still think it's awful and I hate what it does to people, what it's done to my family and friends. But if I didn't have Lyme, I wouldn't know Nicole, and I wouldn't know as much as I do now about God's presence in suffering. I'm not saying, "Go out and get Lyme, it'll change your life." I would never wish this illness on anyone. But I'm learning things through it, and even if I still have a hard time going up stairs somedays, or a hard time focusing, or aching joints, at least I am trying to learn from them.