EP. 18

[00:00:00] Kelsey: Welcome to Planet Spoonie, the podcast for lymies and spoonies healing themselves and the world. In this compassionate and collective space, we explore traditional nutrition, herbal medicine, and nature connection as tools for empowerment when living with chronic lyme and chronic illness. These are the same tools that helped me rediscover the magic, wisdom, and innate healing capacity of my own body and the body of the Earth, even while living with chronic illness in the time of the climate crisis. 

I'm your host Kelsey the herbalist, let's dig in. 

It is so good to be back here in this space with you. I am so excited to share today's episode with you. We have been on a little bit of a break, which was very much needed, and so enjoyable.

[00:00:48] But all this time I have continued meeting with people and having some really wonderful interviews that, like I said, I am just so excited to share with you. So today I am going to be sharing an interview that I did with Alayna Bellquist who is a marine scientist and also someone who has gone through treatment for Lyme disease.

[00:01:11] And we talk a lot about why ticks are not the enemy and how fostering a relationship with nature can be such a core part of your healing journey with Lyme. So get cozy, settle in, maybe find a quiet sit spot outside in the sunshine, with a cup of tea, and let's tune in. 

Hello. Hello. Welcome to the podcast. How are you? 

[00:01:38] Alayna: I'm really well, I'm really excited. I love doing this. It's so fun. And it's like connecting with good people. It's just so nice. 

[00:01:46] Kelsey: So especially a fellow Limey who has been through it. 

[00:01:50] Alayna: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. 

[00:01:52] Kelsey: So tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are and what you do and a little bit of your story.

[00:01:59] Alayna: So my name is Elena Belquist and I am a person who has spent, I think it's now close to four years recovering from late stage Lyme. And I was very busy overachieving type of personality. And then I got really sick in 2020. So in the height of the early pandemic days and went from a really over scheduled over tasked busy go person to bedridden for probably a good year.

[00:02:30] And so the last And then, it was put on some medication, which worked well ish. And so it's been just like a, now a three and a half year, all consuming, totally dedicated healing journey, which I've used by I'm a fisheries biologist, so using my understanding of. nature and a little bit about science and so incorporating that into my healing and then yeah, I've learned an incredible amount It's not somewhere I really envisioned myself being but now then i'm out of the really painful terrible part I am just so Appreciative of the whole thing, despite the physical agony and all of that stuff.

[00:03:14] It's just been really worth it. The people I've met, like I would never be on this podcast and there's just been so much wonderful stuff that has come out of it, but yeah, it was grueling and terrible, and I now feel like I have a lot of information to share because. And I think that's the best experience of what I've 

[00:03:31] Kelsey: endured.

[00:03:31] Yeah. I totally hear you on that. Because I have done for the same. Journey and experience myself. And that was one of the things that really struck me about you. I think I found you on Instagram. I feel like that was where it started. But it was how much you talk about one also knowing that you love courses and are a fellow equestrian, but how much you talk about.

[00:03:56] Your experience as a marine scientist and how important nature has been to your healing journey. So I'm wondering if you can just talk a little bit about that and how that's been a part of your treatment process as someone who's done, conventional and naturopathic who's really brought both sides of the coin into your treatment journey.

[00:04:19] Alayna: I use nature using nature was like a given to me, I didn't have to think I, I sometimes forget that a lot of people are disconnected. It's been since I was a child, like you like I just wanted to ride horses I was outside all the time, we didn't have a ton of money growing up so we were outside because outside was there's tons of nature, and it was free.

[00:04:42] And then all my education has been nature based and then my career. And so for me, using the natural world to heal was not something that was novel. That was just what I was going to do. And I do recognize that is not necessarily how everyone's like mind goes. So for me, I think about it, using it in two ways, metaphorically and the lessons I knew As a biologist about the resiliency and how nature works and those lessons, because we are just an extension of nature.

[00:05:13] Humans are nature. There is no separation. So what I knew as a biologist and the way ecosystems function, I thought, okay I'm just an extension of that. So those same principles to an extent apply to me. And then, so that would be like the more like metaphorical approach I took. And then yeah.

[00:05:30] literally using nature to primarily just regulate my nervous system and calm myself down to provide a place for my body to do the healing that it inherently knows how to do. So while I did a ton of like hardcore medications, I knew through a lot of research and study that a healthy, calm, regulated nervous system was something I absolutely did not have.

[00:05:57] And I had anxiety from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed and which I think is a huge contributor to my illness, that nature was a place that I could regulate my nervous system without really knowing how, like just get barefoot, get in the sun. Get on the earth, get in the ocean, get in the river, get cold, get hot, just be in nature.

[00:06:20] And that, that my, my nervous system was regulated like. Pretty quickly. So yeah, I used it literally and metaphor. And so it was like everything to me in addition to obviously like a ton of hardcore medication and a ton of alternative treatments. But nature, if I used to say it was like one of the four pillars of my healing, which was conventional medication.

[00:06:46] like Western medicine, alternative medicine, mental medicine, therapy, emotional wellbeing, and stuff like that. And nature is the fourth pillar, but I'm starting to realize that nature was the like foundation to it all. So yeah, I could say it was the fourth pillar or it was the ground or the foundation of it all.

[00:07:03] It is connected to every part of my healing. And I wouldn't have it any other way. That was really, like I said, came very naturally to me. And I'm, and I have spent a fair amount of time now in this community. And I realized that's not necessarily a given for a lot of people and it's free and it's accessible and it provides a ton of healing.

[00:07:22] So utilize that. It's what I tell people that are sick a lot. 

[00:07:30] Kelsey: Totally. And it's can be so tricky because like we talked about before, there is this fear that can develop for a lot of people of getting outside and being in nature because there's a fear around tick bites or Maybe other bug bites that are going to be out and about Or just when you get to that point with late stage or chronic Lyme where you're so ill that you become bedridden where you end up with like POTS and heat intolerance or cold intolerance and then All of a sudden, like, all these barriers can come up that maybe weren't there before, that make it even harder to get out into nature.

[00:08:05] So it's tricky, and I think that's where that kind of those other arms can come in to get you back to a place where you can get outside. And you grew up in BC, in Canada, 

[00:08:16] Alayna: yeah. Vancouver Island. Yeah. 

[00:08:18] Kelsey: Okay. Oh, so beautiful. 

[00:08:20] Alayna: Oh my God. The best. 

[00:08:23] Kelsey: And so tell us a little bit about how that happened for you.

[00:08:28] You moved down here and you've got your tick bite here in Southern California, right? Yep. So come and tell us like the evolution maybe of what happened or what was your perception of Lyme even before you had this tick bite before any of this happened. 

[00:08:45] Alayna: I did not have an understanding. So I was born in the early eighties in Vancouver, on Vancouver Island.

[00:08:51] There was absolutely no discussion about ticks, like not nothing. I knew nothing about ticks. And then I moved to California in 2012 and Had maybe heard like a little bit about ticks and Lyme here and there through honestly, not really social media, but like TV. Like I've said this so many times and it's so funny because this is the truth.

[00:09:13] It's what I knew most about it through the real housewives because yeah. Still love that show because Yolanda Hadid had lime and I was like, Wow. She's a horseback rider and she's in SoCal. And that looks dreadful and terrifying. And I watched like every episode and I was like, man, like that's so bad.

[00:09:35] And and then I married my husband who's a hunter and he's been, he was, he's been in San Diego, the majority of his life. And he spent a lot of time in the coastal sage scrub and really tick infested areas, tick endemic areas. And He was a, we went on a hike like in 2013 or something, and we went on a hike, like only 40 minutes, like East County, San Diego.

[00:10:02] And he was, It was like a bit of a game trail. It was pretty scrubby and not very wide path. And he was being a little careful around the bushes. And I was just like brushing through all this stuff. I had no idea. And then when we finished the hike, he looked at me and he's he looked down and he like looked at his legs carefully.

[00:10:19] And I was like, what are you doing? And he was like, oh, I just tick check. We just do tick check. And I was like, tick check? There are ticks here? No. And he turned around and I'm like, Oh, let me check you. And he had two ticks on him, just on his clothes. And it's the first time in my life I'd seen a tick.

[00:10:36] And I like, wow, I just was like, Oh my God, you, and I just flicked him off. And I remember it's so miserably, I said, I just saved your life. Like I just flicked these two ticks off and he was casual about it. Then I never checked myself. It's not fun. I think I like probably just brushed my arms off and I was like this is ridiculous.

[00:10:52] And That's not what I was bitten or anything like that, but that was the first time it was quite a steep learning curve I went from like housewife's knowledge to like Ticks on us hiking and okay he was like no, it's like really, he's a biologist. He's not he's super smart, but I think his understanding was it was more of an East Coast issue.

[00:11:13] And so we weren't alarmed, like they didn't bite us, they were just like flicked them off him and that was it. And so then it creeped in a little bit from there. But when I was bitten in 2017, I still had no understanding because I was bitten and I was shocked that I was bitten, even though I was a horseback rider and hiker.

[00:11:30] And I only ever started really learning about tics in 2020 when I felt terribly ill. 

[00:11:36] Kelsey: But 

[00:11:36] Alayna: before that I had like a Barely rudimentary knowledge. Like I, I really knew nothing. I knew nothing. I was scared because I knew they were here and I knew as a horseback rider and a hiker that I was a little higher risk, but I knew nothing about species or anything about that kind of stuff.

[00:11:58] So when I was bitten in 2017, I called my riding instructor, cause I was bitten in the horse horseback riding and I came home and it was on my stomach and I phoned my instructor and she was like, Yeah, like I, I've been bitten just wash it with soap, like super well meaning meaning and she said she's been bitten many times and so then it was just I'm sure I already had Borrelia in my system at that point, I had been such an outdoorsy person, I've been bitten by like I lived in Mexico for seven months and I was bitten by I have 80 mosquitoes bites on me at a time and like around my goodness, fleas and I've just That's just been my life pretty casual about this stuff very casual about this stuff.

[00:12:44] Kelsey: And it usually is, I feel like, amongst people who are outdoors and exposed, it's, there is a very casual attitude of yeah, it's a tick bite, wash it off, or put a little something on it, and you just, keep going, which is so interesting. 

[00:12:59] Alayna: Yeah. I went to the hospital too, because my husband came home from work and he said, why don't we just run you to the hospital and see what they say?

[00:13:06] And so we were biologists. We took the tick in a little Ziploc bag and showed the doctor. He was like, wow, yeah, that's a tick. I've never seen one here. And I actually developed a rash and he didn't know he'd never seen a tick bite. He'd never, he had no, no experiences with ticks. 

[00:13:24] So he just gave me two pills of doxy and not even a full round, which is super strange to me now.

[00:13:31] I don't, that's not the prescription for anything. You don't give two pills. 

[00:13:35] Kelsey: Zero scientific evidence supporting that. Yeah, like even if But okay. 

[00:13:39] Alayna: Yeah, like even if you had strep throat or whatever, you wouldn't, you give five or seven or whatever days. So yeah. And then when, then you dive on the internet and there's so much misinformation and because we came from a scientific background, we went to CDC and we went to all the trusted medical.

[00:13:56] sources and they all said they all were like, it has to be a deer tick and it has to be on for 24 hours. It has to be in these regions. So we were like, Oh, and you have to form a bullseye rash and you have to like all of these things. So my husband, I sat in the ER and he was like, you cannot have Lyme.

[00:14:12] Like it's impossible based on. The science. So we've come a long way, obviously, in our understanding, but yeah, I had no understanding when I got to California and I didn't until the last several years and it's really skyrocketed now and I understand, obviously it firsthand now. And so I think that's why people like you and I want to speak out loud about these things because I'm a super outdoorsy person and I had no prior knowledge.

[00:14:43] But like what you were speaking about earlier in which I like, love to speak about is that I am still not afraid of ticks and I'm not afraid of Borrelia and those I really don't. I know this is very triggering to people, but I don't blame those for my illness. And that yeah, that's met with different, I get a different response from people when I say that totally where I am.

[00:15:10] Kelsey: Yeah. And so to feed into that, cause I know we've talked about it. Tell us a little bit about what your experience was when you got sick and got diagnosed. Like, how did that how did that kind of come about? Cause I know that leads into some of the reasoning behind what you're saying.

[00:15:29] Alayna: So I became sick in 2020, October, 2020. So this is like peak original COVID very scary time. Very scary time in the world. And we were all holed up inside washing our fricking oranges and milk jugs and all that stuff. So that was a really crazy time. So I but I call it like whispers. I was bitten in 2017.

[00:15:52] So there was three years in between the bite. And when I. thrashed terribly, that I had whispers of symptoms showing up, that I actively ignored. I was afraid and I didn't have time for. So I just ignored them. So I had vertigo, a little bit of body aches, inflamed joints, stiff neck, air hunger. Like now that I say it out loud, I'm like, girl, you so had line, like death.

[00:16:22] So they, those are like the whispers that I felt neuropathy, tingling arms, numb feet Oh my gosh, that was over from 2017 to 2020. And then in 2020, I had a really terrible riding accident and I tore both of my knees and it was terrible riding accident. So I tore both of my knees. And that was like the, and this is a story I'm sure you've heard many times, but like you're barely hanging on and then you have something like more catastrophic.

[00:16:53] And then the then I got the flu, not COVID, but I got the regular flu in October, 2020. My husband and I both did, and he got better in three or four days and I just never got better. Like I just never got better. And but leading up to that, I was, I am the like poster child for the listen to your body's voice first before they become screams because my body was absolutely communicating to me.

[00:17:16] Something is wrong. And I didn't have time for literally anything. I was so overcommitted at work and with horses. I just, I ignored my body until it absolutely screamed at me that I had to listen. So yeah, then I became sick 2020 and went from doing all the things like that overachieving people do, like I was, I would leave the house at six 30 in the morning and I would get home at seven at night.

[00:17:44] That was every day for me. And and then I couldn't sweep the kitchen floor. Like I couldn't go grocery shopping. I couldn't wash the bedsheets. Are you kidding me? That was so like brutal. I couldn't. Yeah, do anything. We couldn't walk to the end of our street. Like making a cup of tea was like a big deal.

[00:18:07] So yeah, it's just the moral of that one is like just your body is constantly communicating to you. And if you choose to ignore it. It's not going to stop. It's just going to get louder until you listen, mine had to get extraordinarily loud. That was, yeah, so that was 2020 October, 2020, you still have pain.

[00:18:28] I still, I was stretching before I got on this call with you, like I was still achy. But yeah, it's been a long, slow healing journey, long and slow. 

[00:18:40] Kelsey: Yeah, I so gosh, I just I still relate because I've so been there and it's mind boggling when you get to the other side, in your treatment where you still have symptoms and things that you're processing.

[00:18:54] But when you look back and think wow, I could not walk to the end of my street or I could not hold a pencil or whatever the thing might be. And it's I can't believe it's hard to sometimes fathom how bad it got when you look back at when things were at peak, because it's just so mind blowing to experience your bot to really experience what it means for an opportunistic pathogens takeover like that is the most apt term because they truly are opportunistic they wait until the accident.

[00:19:26] Or the illness or the something happens and they just come in and they take over and you had a really interesting experience in urgent care, right? Where you were, where you first got like the diagnosis, can you tell us about that because that. It was, it just seems like yeah, it's such an interesting story how that happened.

[00:19:45] Alayna: That, I was so fortunate. I so that's when my husband and I both got the flu and I never got better. A month later, he was, I was unrecognizable and he was just like, he was so used to me being go. And then I was on the couch two o'clock on a Tuesday and he was like, this is not, I don't even know who you are.

[00:20:02] And I was like, I don't know who I am anymore. This is insane. And he, so he finally said, you have to call a doctor. So I waited a month. Thought I said this on another podcast and they were like laughing and I was like they were like, what'd you do? And I'm like, I drank more water and took a multivitamin.

[00:20:17] And I was like, okay, like that's what that'll get me off the couch. And obviously didn't. And then I called, I didn't have a doctor because I was too proud, had great medical care, didn't even have a doctor. And so I just called like an urgent care because it was all zoom. Cause again, it was like peak COVID.

[00:20:35] And I lucked out and I have thought about reaching out to this woman. She was just the one, when you just pick a time and just, she showed up on the screen and told her my symptoms. And she said, I think we need to test you for Lyme. And I said, I do not want to be tested for Lyme. I don't have Lyme because I was so afraid.

[00:20:52] And she was like, I really think you should be tested for Lyme. And then she convinced me and she said, just quick little blood tests. And I'm like, Oh, I'm not afraid of the needle. I'm afraid of the results that I'm like positive. I know what, but I knew nothing about testing. I knew nothing about the limitations of the test.

[00:21:07] So she just, got me a standard old lab core Western blot, Eliza. And then she called me a few days later and I was super strong. Like I hit every band, Barry pot, like without a doubt, super limey, like actively battling a lime infection. And so that was, Very good. Because if I had gotten a negative on the Western blot on the lab core, I would have thought it was like binary.

[00:21:37] I didn't know there was, I knew there, I didn't know there wasn't a great correlation testing. So I would have been like, great, I don't have Lyme. And then I would have never sought out like naturopathic care. I would have probably just gone to a neurologist who would have probably not would have said, Oh, you tested negative online.

[00:21:51] You don't have Lyme. So that. She pushed me to get the Lyme test and then I tested positive. It's like the most fortunate part of this whole thing for me. Which I recognize is not a normal story and not a normal trajectory for people like testing positive was like a great thing. Because then I immediately And she's sent to her like, great.

[00:22:13] Thank you so much. You're not obviously an expert in this. I'm going to go find an expert. And as soon as you do that online, you realize that the experts are all indies. And those types. So I just. Found one right away and she was able to see me within a week. But yeah, that was a huge turning point.

[00:22:31] So fortunate tested lab for pulled worked for me, but I recognize now that 90 percent of people test negative on lab for, and it's just so crazy that 

[00:22:45] Kelsey: positive. And that she even, you definitely have like you were saying, you've said previously, you are like the blaring red flag symptoms, but still even that she knew to test for it because there still is so much misconception.

[00:23:01] And I'm really trying to get in the habit of calling it Borreliosis because That line just continue, it's that continuation of like people think it's on the east coast and I hear it all the time. I literally just heard one of my young cousins who lives here was had a tick on her last week and the doctor said Lyme's not here, but the parents requested antibiotics.

[00:23:21] But you're like, this is still such a, it's still, there's so much misunderstanding here. And I love that. You are so loud about it on social media and everything that you do because we need, we just, we desperately need more people to talk about this. And so I'm also curious if you're comfortable sharing, did you end up finding out if you had any co infections with Lyme?

[00:23:43] Alayna: Oh, I had many, I think. I don't know. And does anyone not? I, and I'd never, I had obviously never heard that like term before. So when I found, I went to restore with Dr. Nicola de Charma in in San Diego. And she's amazing. And I remember I was so scared and I sat in her office and she's the good news is there's no question what we're dealing with.

[00:24:05] You are so limey. You have so much you are definitely CDC positive. That is, yes. They said, that was like verbatim what they said. They said, you're a CDC approved lime. And I was like, that's awesome. It's the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. But and then she said, we're going to just, she was like, we don't even need to test you for Lyme.

[00:24:24] Like it's so obvious what we're dealing with here, but we do need to test you for co infections, which I was like, what are, there's more excuse you. And when you first get tested, when you first become diagnosed, it is so There isn't a strong enough word for the overwhelm, the fear the devastation, the like, where your mind goes.

[00:24:44] Then I'm like, oh, now I'm in ex yolan diet, so I'll be in bed for five and a half years. And so yeah, I tested positive for tick born relapsing fever, which I think you had said is like super common here. Babesia and then I don't even really understand this as a biologist, it's so funny.

[00:25:01] I don't. I don't lean into this stuff because I don't care enough, but like the, how many species of Borrelia are there? 

[00:25:09] Kelsey: So there's so okay. And we have tests for, I don't know, like your doctor's really edgy two to three. No, otherwise just the one. 

[00:25:20] Alayna: Yeah. Like she, she's cutting edge for sure. She's been doing this for so long for 20 years.

[00:25:25] So she But she's so smart because she didn't overwhelm me with here you have six different strains. She was, she just like you have babesia, tick borne relapsing fever in line. And that I'm just, they all get a little treated a little bit differently. And that turns out the babesia was probably like half of my symptoms.

[00:25:42] Like I had. Iron deficiency that I had been trying to treat for 10 years. I could not get my iron levels up. I had an air hunger, which is the weirdest thing in the world. And I was like I, that's cool. That went away because my red blood cells aren't being like feasted upon by the Babesia. So I'm not actually starving at like blood level for oxygen anymore.

[00:26:05] Like just like disturbing levels of anxiety. 

[00:26:09] Kelsey: Like rocking 

[00:26:10] Alayna: back and forth in my bed being like thinking I'm like my brain had been hijacked and I'm a pretty like logical rational person like I don't think I've ever been called like emotional in my life like I'm pretty like type a like that and my husband was like What is going on with your brain?

[00:26:28] I don't know. It was Babesia. Like it was just totally taken over. So yeah. Yeah. And I treated Babesia with Malarone. It was on that for nine months. That, these things we say as line people so casually, it's starting to hit me how insane that is. Like when you go to I went to Belize and they're like, Oh, we recommend you take three days of Malarone and cause of malaria.

[00:26:54] And you just think that's so crazy. And everyone's Oh my God, that makes you the craziest dreams. And I took it for nine months. And like double doses and by selling injections and all the entire year of antibiotics and like all the stuff you're doing at such extreme levels for such like extended amounts of time.

[00:27:14] I realized that I say them so casually. And like, when I say them to like out people outside the lime world, they're like, excuse you. A year of antibiotics yeah, my editor just cause the book I wrote, my editor just had me count up the number of doses I've taken. And I couldn't, it was too many, but it was something like 4, 000 doses of antibiotics.

[00:27:34] And wow. Yeah. And you're just like, Oh my God, this is so crazy. But yeah, you just, yeah. Like the co infections are a whole thing. 

[00:27:45] Kelsey: Yeah. And when you're so in the trenches with these symptoms, you will pretty much do anything, especially if you have a trusted person who is I have treated this for this many years or decades.

[00:27:58] I have seen this work. This will work, get that's what my my, the main person who treated me was an herbalist. And she would always say, give it six months. Just give it six months and it was so true and six months made a remarkable difference, but it's, it is the people outside of the Lyme world, the lengths that we go to, but when you have symptoms, like I know you've experienced where you can't open your jaw to get food down.

[00:28:23] Like it doesn't seem that extreme to just, to do some of these treatments, it does not feel extreme when your symptoms become so extreme. 

[00:28:31] Alayna: Yeah. Bicillin is like such as example of that. It's the, did you ever take Bicillin injections? I did not. It's a crazy it's a penicillin injection and they call it the peanut butter shop because the consistency of the medication is peanut butter.

[00:28:46] It is. Thick and it's excruciating. Like I'm so tough and it's excruciating and they give it to people with late stage syphilis, I think. And I think if you get strep throat and you get your hands on it, it's gone in two hours. Like it's just this crazy, powerful antibiotic. And yeah most healthcare will not cover it.

[00:29:08] And it's something like, it's like hundreds of dollars a shot. And but you can order it from Mexico at 5 a shot or whatever. But the kicker is that it's super painful and you can read up about it online. It's called the peanut butter shot. And people were like, this is the worst thing ever.

[00:29:22] And has to go deep intermuscular. And it takes two to three minutes to inject because it has to be injected slowly and it's so thick and it hurts. And it's just like blinding pain. And I had two shots a week for nine months. And it added up to almost like 60 doses of this stuff. And you are, my my glutes were black and blue, swollen, like war zones of scar tissue.

[00:29:51] And my doctor's just poking around, trying to find an area to do another injection that isn't totally inflamed and totally ruptured with scar tissue and all this stuff. And you just normalize this stuff. I'm like off to get my other bi my 58th bi sillin injection and I still have Lyme and like it's just so crazy what we normalize.

[00:30:16] But in the pursuit of healing, because the alternative is I was like not ready to keep living like that. That wasn't living. It was agony. Every minute was agony for a long time. For like probably, there were probably four months where I, yeah, if you, like at the time it was crazy cause everyone was getting COVID at the time and they were like, Oh my God, I was over two weeks.

[00:30:39] And I'm like, Oh my God, two weeks. That sounds terrible. I was like, okay. So like day two, when you think you're dying of COVID do that for eight months, nonstop. And that's what it felt like. And then it tapered for two more years. And some people have been in this boat for eight years, nine years, ten years, and it's just, it's crazy.

[00:31:07] It's so crazy. 

[00:31:08] Kelsey: Yeah, it really is, and it's one of the reasons also why visibility is so important. Because the people who have not been through this, it is so difficult for people to understand the like the gravity of this situation and you don't, and you definitely don't want to tell people who have just had a tick bite, or who have just had a diagnosis.

[00:31:29] You don't want to tell them any of this because it's like you said, it's very overwhelming experience, but it's also so important that people understand the gravity. Of how serious this condition can get if left untreated and not treated appropriately or in a timely fashion. And not just the weight that it ends up having on the life of the person who's ill, but on like our family and our friends and whoever's in our life.

[00:31:56] It's just really hard to describe to people. And I'm so curious and excited to read your book when it comes out, because it's. I'm excited to read how you describe it because it's so important to validate each other's experience and what it's like going through this because it's not, it's just not talked about enough.

[00:32:13] Thankfully, there are so many more amazing podcasts and things coming out now about this, but there's still such a lack of conversation around Lyme disease. 

[00:32:25] Alayna: I wonder a lot of the time, I have my books, what, 85, 000 words, and I'm like, I don't know if I captured the suffering of words diminish it. Yeah, and then there's a protective part where I think you, like people who've gone through childbirth, right?

[00:32:41] Like you, they say you like forget, so you'll really, you're willing to do it again. Like I don't think I, I've done my very best and I'm a strong writer, but I don't know if you can't, if words can actually capture the like brutality of it. But I've done my very best. And my editor is no, this sounds pretty terrible.

[00:33:02] Okay. 

[00:33:04] Kelsey: Your editor is okay, so no tick bites. Yeah. 

[00:33:09] Alayna: I will never, ever leave home again. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a, it's been a wonderful exercise writing the book and and you, by the end of the book, you'll be like, Oh yeah, this, I. The exact opposite. I don't dissuade people from leaning into natural spaces.

[00:33:27] I'm like, go find your healing and everything in natural spaces and in wild spaces. So it's definitely not like a thing, a fear mongering book in that sense at all. It's like quite the opposite. Because at the end of the day, that's the best thing we can do for the planet. And the planet needs us to heal and we need the planet to heal.

[00:33:45] So that's been really important to me because my whole career I've been trying to like work towards environmental restoration and conservation and things like that. And took me getting sick with Lyme to really come to a lot of these answers of what's the best thing we can do for the planet, which was so crazy and unexpected.

[00:34:04] Yeah. And so I've been really excited to write about that because yeah, like you don't, there's a lot of Lime podcasts and Lime literature and Lime Facebook groups and stuff like that. But the natural world isn't really brought into it. So much at least understandably these.

[00:34:21] can be quite scary after a little like tiny insect can take you out like that. But again, I don't really blame that tick at all, like at all. I blame the way I was living when I was bitten that made me susceptible because I think we're Lime is endemic to like most places and ticks are important and ticks play a role like ecosystems function best when all of the players are there.

[00:34:47] Like we should, and and we need ticks. The planet needs ticks and being afraid of ticks is not the answer. So increasing your own inherent resilience against things like ticks. Borrelia is important, but that you just have to be that's I just find like I'm speaking tactfully about that because if someone had yelled that to me while I was really sick, I would have been like then you don't understand my pain.

[00:35:12] Yeah, totally. Yeah. 

[00:35:13] Kelsey: Yeah. But it's so true what you're saying is so true and so powerful. And I think it's tricky when you are in the depths of it because yeah I just picked up a respiratory infection like a week ago. And had the bo I had the like body aches for a few days and it was a iota of the body aches when I was sick with wine.

[00:35:33] . But I was just like, oh my God, this is how I used to feel every day. Like you do black out how bad it really was. And it was just like a little taste reminder. So it's when you're in that it is hard to hear, but there is also such a hope in that because. We were talking about this previously, but it's like we, we evolved within ecosystems where the pressure of Borrelia was always present.

[00:35:58] Like Borrelia preceded plants, it preceded people by eons, by so much time. So it makes sense, of course, to me as an herbalist that like plants would be one of the many great places to look for an answer, because they're going to have the chemicals like capable of diminishing that bacteria or keeping it under control.

[00:36:19] But that was definitely a reminder for me of these microbes have maybe always been present in my body, because who knows where I got it? Who knows? In theory, I could have got it from my mom or from her, who really knows? We're still learning so much about that. But, Our bodies are totally capable of healing from it, but it's what you said, how can I get, how can I get my body to be an inhabitable ecosystem, like an ecosystem where the Borrelia cannot thrive or does not want to thrive because of all these other things that we began implementing and bringing back into our lives.

[00:36:58] Besides the hustle that we all get sucked into preceding this. 

[00:37:04] Alayna: Yeah, to get your immune system functioning optimally so that it can handle Borrelia. Like I was just, my body was so shot. There were, I just didn't have a chance. And I'm so much healthier and more resilient and robust now that I do feel like if I were to be bitten, like I trust my body's ability now, whereas at the time I was not.

[00:37:33] Doing my body well enough. And I give myself a lot of grace because I now have done so much inner work to understand why are you why was I racing the clock? Why was I living in such a frantic, chaotic state? And like, why am I seeking outward approval? Why do I think that my, like the goal of life is in achievements and how much I accomplished.

[00:37:53] And the people only really love me because of how much I've accomplished. And so give yourself grace. It's not your fault. That we are in a society that has praised like the hustle and the grind and all of those things. I'm just a product of that. I totally give myself grace for not knowing any better and doing really well, what I was told would reward me, which was like climbing the ladder and doing all of the things.

[00:38:21] It just, instead of rewarding me, it got me really sick. And so for some people that might look like fibromyalgia or chronic migraines or arthritis or whatever it is for me, it just looked like line. But I think the root cause of so many things is the way that we're existing in the environments that we exist within.

[00:38:42] And so yeah, I like to, I say that all the time, like I'm way more afraid of people pleasing. I'm way more afraid of my inability to say no, and I'm way more afraid of no free time and dysregulated nervous system. Really top polluted air, like polluted water, like those Yeah.

[00:39:02] Soil degradation, like those things scare me way more than Borrelia way more. Yeah, it's, but these things take a long time. Are on Instagram right now that visual that's going around, which I don't love because it wasting water, but they have a cup of brown water, like dirty water, and they have the tap on.

[00:39:21] Putting clean water into it, and it takes like several minutes for the dirty water to mix and spill out. And it's eventually replaced by the clean water coming out of the tap. And then they're like, this is what healing looks like. It just is I lime takes so much time.

[00:39:38] It's not linear. It's up and down. It's front and back. It's like totally confusing. It takes, I go, I literally now think in years, like I was walking with my husband this morning and I a little achy and I'm like, Oh God, we're still here. And then I went, no last spring. I have to now think in years, not weeks.

[00:39:59] Like we are taught, like when you get COVID or the flu or whatever, you think in days, Oh, I've had it for five days, six days, whatever. Maybe not with long COVID, but like the traditional cold or flu with Lyme, I now think in years. I'm like, how was I last year? Like your doctor, how was I six months ago?

[00:40:18] And that's just the time that it requires because it took me decades to get into this mess. This was so not done overnight. This took decades. This has really been like lining up since my youth, like where I started to believe those things about me that I was only lovable if. I accomplished these things are like only valuable if these things are like messages that started coming in decades ago, quite literally.

[00:40:44] So of course it's going to take time to heal. 

[00:40:47] Kelsey: Gosh, there's there are so many powerful things behind what you're saying, but I think it's so helpful I think for everyone here, but especially when you're just at the start of this journey. 

[00:40:57] Alayna: Yeah. 

[00:40:58] Kelsey: Because like you just saying that, You trust your body, you trust yourself, you trust your body now to know what to do if this comes forward again, and I feel like that is such an insane, incredible evolutionary journey because it is, it's going to sound like a total cornball, but it's like the, that corny quote that Louis Pasteur supposedly said on his deathbed of It's not the, it's not the germ, it's the terrain.

[00:41:29] And it's so true, it's, it is the terrain. It's not the germ. It's so much more about what we're cultivating in our body and in our lives and for ourselves. 

[00:41:39] Alayna: That's a beautiful quote. I've never heard that. That is incredible. 

[00:41:44] Kelsey: What's his name? Louis Pasteur. He invented pasteurization.

[00:41:50] Pasteurization of milk and dairy. Yeah. Lots of fun stuff about him. He coined germ theory. And I don't know if he actually said that on his deathbed, but that's the word on the street. That's the legend. That's what he said on his deathbed. It's all about the terrain. Which, of course, microbiology has taken off in the last decade or so is especially fascinating.

[00:42:16] Alayna: Yeah, that's incredible. Thank you for sharing that. That's, I've got a lot of little quotes scattered throughout my book. Like I just, I've had, we all have quotes that we love and anything that kind of like relates to the natural world usually really pulls it, pulled at me. I think that's an incredible quote.

[00:42:35] Kelsey: Yeah, because it's so much of what you were saying too It is about clean air and clean soil and clean water and these foundations like Laying the foundation for a body that can thrive and be vital because our bodies are totally capable of handling this. We just have to get out of our own way.

[00:42:55] And of course, then how that reflects into what's happening on a larger scale with the climate crisis and how there's so much mirroring between this dysbiosis that happens in our body and what's happening to our ecosystems at large. And I don't know if you've already shared a little bit, but I'm curious if there's anything else you feel like in your work as a marine scientist that has really informed and helped carry you through 

[00:43:22] Alayna: this whole journey.

[00:43:23] Like when you asked me about ways I use nature, when I started to realize that I had played a role, so I've been working in marine science for, I don't know, 17 years or something, that. And then through a lot of study ecosystems that you think are so degraded by humans are so devastated or species that are functionally extinct, like in fisheries, like it's really hard to make us a fish species, like actually completely vanished, but functionally extinct, like basically gone.

[00:44:00] Like I was, I had a. a role in bringing back some species from basically functionally extinct that I thought were too far gone. Like I just, there's no way they're going to rebound. They've just been fished too recklessly for too long. And the, with the, pressures from overfishing and warming oceans and habitat loss and habitat degradation and changes in food supply and things like that.

[00:44:29] You just think there's no way when they've there's just too much coming at them. But yeah, in the year 2000 in California, there was like a, now we're like getting off topic, but there was a declaration made that there was a rockfish disaster. That was what they called it. The state said, we have a disaster.

[00:44:46] We've fished out so many of these rockfish theses. They, these fish live 60, 70, 80 years old. So they were reproducing their teens. They live long lives. They grow slowly. So prime candidates for being overfished because they don't, they were like 17 when they start reproducing and things like that.

[00:45:06] And but the fisheries managers reacted strongly and enacted a lot of different types of regulations, like fishing regulations and just really reined in. fishing pressure. And these, a lot of these, almost every single stock rebuilt within a decade and a half. Nate, like Nate and you, that is just such an example that when, given the time and the care and the conditions, nature is so inherently resilient.

[00:45:40] It is just so capable of recovering from utter devastation that I was like, there's no way these fish are coming back. We have it's been pushed over. We've crossed the line, the tipping point is, and we've met it. And they came, every single one of them came back faster than was predicted.

[00:45:57] faster than was predicted. But, it wasn't exactly comfortable. These regulation changes can be really difficult for industry and the local economies and those, that's difficult for families whose livelihoods are dependent on this stuff. But it's totally a literal metaphor for healing.

[00:46:14] I was like, okay let's think about my, my, My body like a stock of fish that is like totally devastated and like it's going to take time. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to require a lot of patience. It's going to require a lot of intention. And so that's just how I thought about my healing.

[00:46:33] If nature can come back like white sharks. have come back. I know people don't love to hear this, but like they are everywhere here now and they were not, and that's amazing. And that was through management action. Sea lions, stuff like that. There's examples of resiliency everywhere where humans had a big role in bringing back species and ecosystems that they destroyed.

[00:46:56] And I just knew that. I didn't really realize how much of an advantage I had knowing that as being like studying it and being a part of it. And so I, to me, that was just a given like I knew I was resilient because nature is resilient and I am nature. And I, that's a privilege I had a lot of people don't spend a lot of time studying that in school like.

[00:47:17] And it's when you're like, oh, God, I hope I'm not a fool. I'm like, bless him. If you're studying economics. Like you're like, nature is like a, I don't even know. Like it was not even considered. Yeah. I love to write about this stuff in the book. And I think it's really empowering position to take because you're telling like, I want to, I want people to know that they are designed to heal.

[00:47:37] Their body is designed to heal in a way that we have been totally we have been, like, gaslit by society or whatever the term is. We are so capable of healing and it doesn't require someone to write you a prescription necessarily. Like it's inherent within you. We just aren't taught these things, but it's such an important place, right?

[00:47:59] Like it's so cool when you're like, Oh, my body is literally designed to heal. Okay. But the conditions seem to be right. People pleasing is not a great condition to live in. Like those are the things that killed my resiliency. Like I just went, okay, what's killing my resiliency? Okay. I'll deal with those things.

[00:48:18] Anxiety, racing heart, all the things and like someone like you has a medical understanding like I why is anxiety bad for you? Okay. Cause like all of the hormones that are tied to that. And why does that destroy your immune system? I'm not so interested in that stuff. I take a little bit more of a higher 10, 000 foot view, but yeah, I just want to empower people.

[00:48:41] And at the same time, encourage them to go out in nature and see it for themselves. Cause then people want to protect places they love and this planet needs our help. And so the more time we spend in nature, the more time we want to protect it. And it's resilient too. So it can, we just, it's, we're all, it's all connected at the end of the day.

[00:49:04] Kelsey: It's so true. And it's so important, I think, to have that wider angle lens because it is such a product of kind of the culture and society we're in to have this like very top down narrow perspective of it's a bacteria, must kill, okay, we've got it. This is it. But it's actually.

[00:49:25] Are you drinking enough water? Are you journaling or dancing or processing your feelings or are you stuffing them down by drinking, there's so many pieces to like navigate and sort through that really come back to just this foundation, the basics, and maybe you still will need to take whatever conventional medication or traditional.

[00:49:45] medicines or whatever that might be, but it's we can't overlook just that basic foundation of if you don't drink enough water, you're not going to feel good. That's 

[00:49:54] Alayna: pretty, 

[00:49:54] Kelsey: I would not have healed 

[00:49:55] Alayna: if I, yeah, if I had just done antibiotics, I would not, I would still be very sick.

[00:50:00] It's yeah, you got it. You can't, it's not one or the other. I needed a holistic approach, which included some hardcore Western medicine. And. Talking to the trees in the front yard like it was like, yeah, big wide spectrum. 

[00:50:18] Kelsey: Yeah. And then I think too and of course not everyone might have this perspective, but you and I definitely both do have then being able to draw that connection to Oh maybe there's more ticks in the ecosystem because the ecosystem's out of balance.

[00:50:35] And why is the ecosystem out of balance? And like, how does this tie into what's happening on a larger, like climate wide, ecosystem wide scale? And then the political ties that might have. And there's so many other layers that you can go into it. And it does start to develop this like really deep rapport and relationship with the planet itself and with nature itself.

[00:50:56] And it's Oh, okay. I see you. I get this, like you are here to help me heal. And I'm here to help you heal too. It sounds so corny, but it's also it just gives you so much help when you can draw that connection. And it. And it gives you such a sense of like purpose and a through line when you're really in the depths and you need something to help you pull through that really rough 

[00:51:17] Alayna: period.

[00:51:19] Absolutely, totally. Everything is connected and and we know so little but we do understand the interconnectedness of ecosystems, and that the relationships, like up in the northwest, the way The bear is connected to the salmon is connected to the streams connected to the trees. Like you don't protect a bear by making more bears you protect a bear by protecting their habitat because a bear is made of the riparian environment and the stream and the salmon and the top of the canopy and the like.

[00:51:55] It's the, it's everything, the, and we don't understand it fully. There are some very like textbook examples sea otters and urchins and kelp. They teach kids that relationship all the time. Why getting rid of sea otters is bad for the kelp and the relationship and things like that.

[00:52:13] But I take for granted that I understand those interconnected relationships. And that why. killing, like, why rattlesnake populations, like, why getting rid of snakes might mean more ticks. And making those connections and that, not everyone is privileged enough to understand that or have an education that like taught them those things.

[00:52:35] I hope they teach us. 

[00:52:38] Kelsey: Can you walk us through that? If you have an example that relates to tech somehow, because they're real, it is shocking how many people don't have that understanding of the ecosystem kind of connections. Do you have an example that you could share? Because.

[00:52:51] I know we've talked about like I'm sure so many people listening have seen the stuff that's coming out now about like pesticides for ticks were in entire counties are like passing, a statute to spray the whole county down to get rid of text to avoid Lyme disease, and that is like such a wildly.

[00:53:12] dangerous, just misguided approach. Can you talk about how that works? Like how that chain works within an ecosystem? Why it's important to, to recognize the ticks role within the ecosystem. 

[00:53:26] Alayna: Yeah. Those people should read silent spring and understand when they thought DDT was the answer to everything, like those people who are making that legislation should have to read silent spring and then reconsider.

[00:53:36] That's just so short sighted and such a 

[00:53:38] Kelsey: good book if anyone has not read 

[00:53:40] Alayna: that. So yeah, see, I think this is like required reading and I'm sure a lot of people are like, huh? An oldie, but a classic. She's an oldie. But way ahead of her time. Yeah. So like with ticks ticks exist on rodents.

[00:53:55] bunnies, rats, mice, birds, and things like that, because ticks are just the vector, right? The lime actually lives in the rats and the rodents and stuff, like the bacteria lives in those rodents. The tick just feeds on those like rabbits or whatever, and takes from feeding on the infected rabbit or rat, whatever it is, then they pick up the Borrelia and transmit it to us.

[00:54:21] But like snakes, if you have a nice, healthy, abundant ecosystem full of snakes, then they control the rodent population. So then you have less rodents, which means less ticks. And so it's all connected. More snakes means less ticks. Or I think possums eat, what is that number? They eat 5, 000 ticks.

[00:54:43] Kelsey: I can't, I remember reading mixed numbers, but it may, they're already adorable, but you're like, wow, I love possums even more. 

[00:54:50] Alayna: Absolutely. But yeah, it's why, predators are a key part of ecosystem health is why we need white sharks and we need mountain lions and we need rattlesnakes and we need all of these.

[00:55:06] You need apex predators to balance the ecosystem. And yeah, like here people are freaked out about rattlesnakes and stuff like this, but I'm like no, we need them. They keep down the rodent population. Yeah. And 

[00:55:19] Kelsey: even things like there's so many pieces to it. And it so ties back to like such widespread ecosystem disruption, but even an interesting one, my where my grandparents live is a very tick and panic area.

[00:55:32] If you go for a walk outside, you're probably going to get a tick. East coast Midwest, like the foothills of the Ozarks and very Northeastern Oklahoma. And my uncle owns like a huge plot of land, several hundred acres. It's so beautiful. And he'll do controlled burns every so many years.

[00:55:50] And, but he always says that he has, if he's done a controlled burn, there are way less ticks. If he hasn't done a controlled burn in a couple of years, the tick population is way up. And because of course, there's also, there's no keystone predators there anymore. It's all deer and all the deer populations all controlled via hunting because there's no predators really, except for the occasional mountain lion.

[00:56:11] But it's so it's even here in my backyard. The last two tick bites I had were like 2017 and 2019 from my backyard here in San Diego from deer. But as soon as I moved back here with my dog and the deer stopped coming because my dog was chasing them off, I've never seen a tick again in the yard. But it's just it's, which is obviously that's not a great ecosystem example because it's a dog, but It is just still yeah, fascinating how that, how it all ties together.

[00:56:42] And it's like having a chat 

[00:56:43] Alayna: loss, like the deer are moving in to the cities because they're, there's so much like sprawl, like off the 56 and off the 52 and all these freeways, right? So sprawl is just moving, the deer just getting displaced and coming in closer, whatever fires and incredible, that's really cool.

[00:56:58] It was fires and essential part of ecosystem health and forest, like fires are an essential part of fire forest health and things like that. Yeah, there, it's not hard. You can just do a quick Google search and understand why ticks are important. Scientists, researchers know this, like this isn't like nature makes no mistakes.

[00:57:16] Ticks aren't a mistake and removing ticks will have cascading effects that we don't understand. And I wouldn't tell people to get rid of ticks. I would say, let's build our own resiliency. And so that we're more prepared when we do encounter ticks. It's not saying be reckless. Let's not go like rolling around in the sage scrub, but let's just yeah.

[00:57:36] Spraying for ticks. That's really. That's pretty, pretty terrible to hear. I don't know what, I wonder what they'll be 

[00:57:42] Kelsey: spraying. I have, that's crazy. I know it's very gut clenching, even as people who have gotten really ill from Lyme disease. So please don't do that. Yeah, I should go 

[00:57:55] Alayna: there waving around, waving my Western blot test around.

[00:57:58] Look, I promise you, even the CDC recognized me and I don't want this. 

[00:58:05] Kelsey: Yeah, that's crazy. Digging us deeper, deeper into the hole. So I know we're getting close to our time here and you may have already said it cause you've shared so many gems and pearls of wisdom, but I'm wondering if there was one thing that you wish you could have told yourself 10 years ago or four years ago, when this really started for you what do you wish you could tell yourself?

[00:58:32] Alayna: When the symptoms started squeaking in. Yeah, 

[00:58:35] Kelsey: Whenever you feel like this journey started for you.

[00:58:39] Alayna: That's crazy. Facing problems head on. Turning a blind eye was one of the most detrimental things I did. So pick up each stone, face your problems head on, boldly, and you will get through. Because through is the only way. Yeah, I was a f I was f Fearful. So I decided to be, to turn a blind eye, and that ended up costing me in the end.

[00:59:08] So there's nothing you can't get through, there's nothing you can't overcome. But problems are best solved, taken head on take the reins and face these things. And I didn't do that for a long time. I was too afraid to investigate these symptoms. And that would have changed the trajectory for me.

[00:59:26] I'm sure I have no regrets. I'm really glad that this is all working out the way it is, but yeah, I think that's just what I should have done. Probably I should have taken vertigo a little more seriously six years ago, live and learn. 

[00:59:45] Kelsey: Yeah, absolutely. And it's, and you, you have so much wisdom now that you're sharing with people that we're all benefiting from.

[00:59:55] And so where can people find you? Because I know you have your book coming out next year. 

[01:00:01] Alayna: Yeah, I'm in the final stages of editing right now and that is so intense. So I would imagine next year 2025, which is so crazy, it'll be published and ready for everybody. And then I I'm on Instagram and I have a pretty, I'm pretty consistent on Instagram and it's a lot of free information on Just recovering from Lyme.

[01:00:25] It's a very positive place. It's very I found the forums and things like that. I was like dipping my toe in to be quite like doom and gloom. And I always felt worse when I left those places. This is a place I want people to feel empowered and better after and not blind. Look at look at head on.

[01:00:43] This is what we're dealing with. And that is empowering to know what you're dealing with. So you can get through this. So I'm really active on Instagram. It's Alayna Belquist, A L A Y N A. And and then I have a website, alaynabelquist. com. And we, I've been running like monthly Zoom sessions with anyone who wants to join.

[01:01:07] They're free. And we do We get together for an hour. Sometimes I'll do a, have my doctor and I will co host and talk about a specific treatment like SOT or, diet as it pertains to Lyme recovery. So lots of question and answer time. And so anyone is welcome to those. That's great.

[01:01:27] really been super, super informative for people. And then, yeah, I guess the mod, the, at the end of the day there, I just want to be the person I really needed three years ago when I thought my life was totally ruined by Lyme, I would have loved someone with my perspective. And so I, if I could be that for someone who right now is bedridden and thinks that their life is over.

[01:01:49] And I just want people to reach out. Like I have had, I have made life changing connections with people on Instagram. People that have fundamentally changed my life through the internet, strangers who are now like family to me. And then the last thing is I'm working on is developing like a more structured three part course on.

[01:02:14] the specifics of how I recovered and the mindset work that I did and my approach to healing because I went from Being very sick to quite well, pretty fast for a Lyme person, considering how ill I was, it's all happened pretty quickly, quicker than most my doctors say. So yeah, I just want to share this information, but I love when people reach out to me, like genuinely love it.

[01:02:36] And I've done a bunch of podcasts too, and that's all on my website where you can, if you want to get more me. 

[01:02:44] Kelsey: I'll love that. Thank you for sharing. And I'll be sure to share all the links to all of this in the show. If you're listening, you can find it all there. And I will say too, I highly recommend following because you do it.

[01:02:57] So you share information and hope in such a tactful way. Like I think we've talked about, it's a real balance between validating The intensity and the difficulty of going through this and that it's not your fault, while also empowering and educating people that they can heal and they can take their power back and get through this, and you just do it in such a tactful way, which I really appreciate.

[01:03:25] Alayna: Yeah, it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility. And that is such a good thing to remember to childhood trauma, to anything that's happened to you, Lyme, whatever it is. It's happening for you in many ways and no one is coming to save you and that's just the hardcore, brutal truth. So I love, I quite, I, I give myself a lot of grace by thinking.

[01:03:50] It wasn't my fault, but it is my responsibility. And that is such an empowered place to be. So I'm so thankful for this conversation and for our connection. And for you saying that this is so important to me that I do things. gracefully and tactfully because this is, these are people's lives and I understand what it's like to have your life turned upside down and so I'm super aware of that when I'm sharing things like tics aren't the enemy.

[01:04:17] I'm like, but I like, you got to do it gracefully because it's like pretty hard to do these things. 

[01:04:23] Kelsey: Yeah. Oh, totally. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been really fun. I'm so glad you did this. We'll have to do it again. Anytime. Anytime.

[01:04:35] As always, I hope that you all enjoyed today's episode. Maybe you learned a few things or shifted your perspective on what it actually means to have Lyme disease and how this is really part of living on this living earth in an easy ecosystem. And as always, our bodies are a direct reflection of the ecosystems we inhabit.

[01:05:00] And I know that just like this earth, our bodies know how to heal. This is what it means to be a Spoonie living on a Spoonie planet. The journey to healing is a mutualistic endeavor and I am so grateful that you're here walking the path with me.