“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to just try one more time.” — Thomas Edison

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face” – Mike Tyson

Dear Shawn

From a young age you were always taught to stare adversity in the face and power through it. Anything less was a sign of weakness and frankly, a waste of time. In athletics, minor injuries were par for the course but nothing a quick stretch or a dose of Advil couldn’t solve. In life, every obstacle was simply a challenge to jump over.

These beliefs were foundational through your teens and served you well through University and even your journey into the working world. 

• Feeling Tired?
• Feeling Stressed?
• Feeling Sick?
• Feeling overwhelmed?

Your inner voice was always the same, “suck it up buttercup, find another gear, you’re fine”. 

Early in 2013 that inner voice was no longer enough. After moving across the country, closing on a new home, starting a new senior role and welcoming your 2nd child you suddenly woke up feeling as though you had spent 15 rounds in an MMA “no holds barred” event. The level of exhaustion you were feeling was like nothing you had ever experienced. Simple tasks like climbing a flight of stairs suddenly felt like climbing K2. On top of extreme physical and mental exhaustion you also started to have trouble navigating basic conversations and started to notice significant tremors in both hands. Initially, you told yourself, “It’s just a phase, you’re overtired, it will pass….push through it”

The problem was that after several weeks you felt worse, not better. To make matters worse you chose not to discuss these challenges with your manager or take time off, thinking this would show weakness and affect your professional reputation. Rather than downshifting, you pushed the pedal down, delivering against all of your work commitments; in turn depleting your body of all remaining energy and becoming a shadow of your former self at home.

After much convincing and pleading from your sympathetic wife you finally started to see some health professionals. At first, all the standard tests looked normal and the conclusion was that you were just “exhausted”, but after speaking to a close friend from college, Joanna, you decided to take an antigen test for Lyme disease and the results were positive. The positive antigen test combined with exhaustion, brain fog and neurological made it quite clear that your body was in a full-on battle with Lyme disease. But wait, you didn’t remember getting bit by a tick. How could this be possible?

Your best guess, after years of reflection, is that at some point in your life you had been bit by a tick, gotten infected with Lyme disease but the disease stayed dormant in my body. Years later, the combination of chronic stress, neglect for your body and lack of sleep provided a perfect host for this dormant virus to take hold and it flourished!

Unfortunately, in 2013 our medical system was still very early in their recognition of Lyme as a real condition and therefore could offer very limited assistance to you. After reading a vast collection of material on the topic you were scared and terrified that this illness had a strong potential to change your life forever. You realized it was going to be up to you, with support from a few trusted health professionals, your family and a few close friends to figure out how you could get through this.

After 18 months of focused treatment including major dietary restrictions (no added sugar, no gluten, no alcohol), targeted physical therapy (massage, reformer pilates, acupuncture), herbal therapies and a commitment to at least 8 hours of quality sleep you finally started to feel like yourself again. That being said, anytime you felt like you were out of the woods and started pushing yourself too hard Lyme would remind you of it’s presence . In 2023, 10 years later you can finally say that it has been years since you have been symptomatic.

So what did you take away from this experience and what have you integrated into your day-to-day life.

1. Sleep is restorative – While open to debate from others on what they think you need an average of 8 hours to allow your body to rest and repair. There will be times when you simply cannot get enough sleep but, in those circumstances, recognize and allow yourself the time and space to repay your sleep debt. You prioritize sleep
2. Food is fuel – You’re not a health nut when it comes to food but you do make conscious decisions of what you choose to put into your body. You try to make better decisions whenever you can and make sure you thoroughly enjoy it when you splurge on a bowl of chips or a double scoop of ice cream. 
3. Sweat reboots your brain – Exercise is not about setting world records or even personal records, it’s about consistently showing up and allowing your body the ability to sweat and for endorphins to help your reboot your brain. You make it a priority to sweat every single day.
4. Stretching keeps you moving – Even 5 mins of full body stretching (including foam-rolling and targeted lacrosse ball rolling) at the end of every day has an enormous impact on your overall mobility and the efficiency of your blood flow. You stretch every evening before bed
5. Your body is talking to you all the time – Give yourself some mental space to listen to your body and make sure that you, as the pilot of your body are checking the instrumentation before pushing it to full throttle. If something feels off or different you trust your instinct and seek help. 

I hope you leverage this experience to guide your future decisions and keep yourself in check so that you can maximize the thrill and enjoyment of the road ahead.

As Tom Cochrane once said “Life is a highway, I want to ride it all night long”