I believe I got Lyme disease for a reason and if that is to help bring awareness, that is my mission and I will do the best that I can to do that.

I believe I got Lyme disease for a reason and if that is to help bring awareness, that is my mission and I will do the best that I can to do that.

I'm able to fight for myself, I'm able to speak up and feel like I have a voice, and I can be my own advocate and my own warrior.

It's like you're wearing a really amazing dress and high heels and you've just gone to the hair salon and gotten a facial and you feel fabulous, and then someone says, You look really awful. You're thinking, Was I completely delusional? That's what having Lyme disease feels like. It was very lonely and for many years I just didn't talk about the way I felt because I assumed if there's nothing wrong on paper, maybe this is just the way a human is supposed to feel, and I'm just complaining about it.

I would love to bring to light, besides just educating about Lyme in general, that it's a very complicated disease and it's very, very scary for the people who are dealing with it because your insides don't match your outsides. That can be very infuriating because people would say, "You look great." And you're like, I can't even carry on a conversation with you right now.

You gotta just laugh at yourself and let it go and not take things too seriously because life is too short.