Guest Post #1… from Lucy Faith

After I dried my eyes for the last time of what seemed like a million… here is the post from my 11 year old beautiful on the inside and out, oldest daughter and true blessing of a friend… my Lucy Faith.

Please read and PLEASE share her post however you possibly can… we need awareness… we need funding… we need acknowledgement of this disease… we need better testing and treatment options… we need insurance coverage… we need Washington D.C. to hear us… we need the CDC to have opened eyes… we need the AMA to act on the fastest growing vector born disease in the world… PLEASE READ, SHARE AND PRAY!

From Lucy:

“Hi!  My name is Lucy, and most of you may already know, but my mom had lyme’s disease, something caused by a tiny little tick. She also has some co-infections called Babesia, Bartonella, and many more.

This disease is horrible, everything about it. My mom had lyme for about 26 years and doctors could never diagnose her. Twice they told her that she had months left to live and apparently they were wrong, because…um… hello; to this day I have my mom! We had always known she had lots of heath issues… but we never knew what any of them were from. I spent lots of my time until I was about five year ago old up at OHSU and so many other doctors with my mom and brother. I’ve seen a lot of horrible things.
When we finally found out what my mom had, it brought in a lot of stress. I could see it in my moms eyes and it was written all over my daddy’s face… I cannot lie; I was scared.

One memory that really scared my heart was my moms first terrible pain episode.  I remember we were all sitting on the couch and my mom had her headache that she had had for months at the time. All of the sudden she started to hunch over in pain, moan, shake, and do this uncontrollable jerking motion and then my daddy told us to go upstairs.  This was scary, what was going on? Is she ok??? All this going through mind while I was upstairs with my frightened little sister who was almost half asleep and trying to comfort my crying brother. I did not cry, but I was so horrified nothing would come out of me.  All of the sudden, and I will never forget the feeling… this blanket of peace came over me and it felt like God came and hugged me and then all His angels came and hugged me too! I felt so strong, like God said: “You can do this! You can be with your mom!  And you can live like this!  I put you here to take care of her!” So, I went down the stairs to where my dad was trying to take care of my mom as best as he could. But it was hard, none of us knew how to. For all we knew she was going to die… I sat next to my mom and I gave her a hug, and she told me, ‘’ Keep you’re eyes on Jesus and remember you’re life is in his hands.’’ Those words have stuck with me forever.
After a while, those nightly episodes became more regular. We knew how to take care of her, and what to expect. But watching my mom suffer like this was so terrible. Soon her body could not take the pain so she would pass out… but she would not breathe so we had to wake her up which can very hard… sometimes we would have to move her around, push on her chest or even slap her cheeks. It can be scary. I would pray and pray for no more of those episodes to happen but they just kept coming… This verse really related to what I was feeling.

Psalm 22:1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from helping me and from the words I am groaning?

I felt so unanswered and I never knew what was going to happen. I have never really had bad dreams, but with everything going on it definitely  caused some… I was dreaming about things like mom dying and my bed being full of ticks. I never wanted to leave my mom because I never knew what was going to happen.

Soon we could start to tell when she was going to have a bad pain episode, she would get a really bad headache, her neck would tighten up and then she would get terrible abdominal pain and that was just the start of many long painful nights. Usually she was on the couch the whole time, one time it was such terrible pain that she ended up on the floor, groaning. It is the worst thing to see, and no one should have to see that. Usually she could not control herself, the pain took over her body. Her fingers and eyes started to twitching and it drove her crazy she would say “Make it all stop!”, and then she would pass out. Me, my dad, and my brother would be running back and forth from the kitchen and pretty soon we had everything out that we needed to care for her. Sometimes we would try to prevent it from happening by giving her what she needed right when the pain would start, but even doing all we could to prevent it was not working at all…it was so terrible!!!! Sometimes after an episode we all got to eat ice cream! So in a way we also found joy after it was over and we celebrated making it through!!

I remember my moms last episode of the summer. It was on August 4 of 2016. I think that is a day my entire family will remember. It was the day before we flew out to the hospital in Germany! Even after Germany and the lyme being dead, the fight is still not over… Some people may think so, but it really is not. We are still going through a lot, detoxing, and killing co-infections because of all the snow in Bend it was extremely cold. The cold along with new medicines my mom was taking to kill the Babesia disease started my moms insane pain again on Christmas Eve. This continued for eight nights in a row,  so we knew what we had to do. We up and left all our things, our family, our ranch and animals, all our Christmas presents and our own rooms and we booked one way tickets and flew to Hawaii in 48 hours. Since being in Hawaii, mom has had no bad episodes! But lots of pain… so even in the warmth we are still working hard to keep fighting, and we will keep going!

Exodus 14:14 ‘’The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold you’re peace.’’

It has been hard at times to stay strong and hold my peace, but through it all God has fought and provided for my family! I’m so thankful for the family I have!

Thank you to everyone who has supported and prayed for us! We really do appreciate it all so much!

Sincerely,
Lucy Faith Pratt ”

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to hear my daughters heart…  it is so hard for me to read these honest words and know the depth of her pains.  I choose to be thankful for her strength, her reliance on God and her help in my times of need!  Lucy, is an incredible blessing  truly my right arm more times than not!  “I love you Munch💚!”

XO,

Sincerely, Dani