Alone, at the age of twelve, I was crying worse than I ever had before. Never had I wailed if I fell and scraped my knees. Never had I wailed if I got the wind knocked out of me. Never had I wailed if anything had happened to me.  Growing up, I had only been around one person with Lyme’s disease, and he was barely able to function, rarely out and about, so now, now I wail.

His name was Itch and he certainly was miserable, this and the fact that I had been warned my entire life about the horrible disease since we were out in the woods for most of my early childhood; it filled me with immense sadness. So when my dad, with a hurry, left the house at nine o’clock telling me he has Lyme’s disease.

 I sat on the doorstep for what felt like hours before he got home. I still don’t know if I felt light headed because I thought my dad was going to die or if I had just lost too much fluid to tears.

 I took a hockey stick and started slamming it on our hockey net, I was so angry. Why him? Why did it have to be him? Why couldn’t it be the guide he was with on his fishing trip? I threw the stick into the woods and headed back inside to continue crying. 

 The antibiotics are hurting him, he takes a pill the size of a horse five times a day and is probably more sick from that than the disease. I had been getting him cups of coffee every morning because that was the only way I knew I could help him. three months later he’s cured, and sometimes I like to think it’s partially because of me.