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Sick. Porochista Khakpour
Читать онлайн.Название Sick
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781786896056
Автор произведения Porochista Khakpour
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство Ingram
Porochista Khakpour is the author of the novels Sons and Other Flammable Objects, which was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and The Last Illusion. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Elle, Slate and Salon, among others. She has been awarded a number of fellowships and is currently a guest membr of the faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts and a Contributing Editor at the Evergreen Review. Born in Tehran and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in New York City's Harlem. Her memoir, Sick chronicles her discovery of late-stage Lyme disease.
@PKhakpour | porochistakhakpour.com
ALSO BY POROCHISTA KHAKPOUR
Sons and Other Flammable ObjectsThe Last Illusion
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2018 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Porochista Khakpour, 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted
First published in the USA in 2018 by HarperCollins Publishers,
195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 604 9
eISBN 978 1 78689 605 6
Designed by Leydiana Rodriguez
Contents
This book contains my personal story. I am not a medical professional, and, therefore, the inadvertent advice and information I share throughout this book is in no way intended to be construed as medical advice. If you know or suspect that you have a health problem, it is recommended that you seek the advice of your physician or other professional advisor before embarking on any medical program or treatment.
To Voyce& her honeybees
“Those great wars which the body wages with the mind a slave to it, in the solitude of the bedroom against the assault of fever or the oncome of melancholia, are neglected. Nor is the reason far to seek. To look these things squarely in the face would need the courage of a lion tamer; a robust philosophy; a reason rooted in the bowels of the earth.”
—VIRGINIA WOOLF, On Being Ill
“Do you believe, she went on, that the past dies?
Yes, said Margaret. Yes, if the present cuts its throat.”
—LEONORA CARRINGTON, The Seventh Horse and Other Tales
AUTHOR’S NOTE
It seems impossible to tell this story without getting the few certainties out of the way, the closest one can come to “facts.” The hardest part of living with Lyme disease for me has always been the lack of concrete “knowns” and how much they tend to morph and blur over the years, with the medical community and public perception and even within my own body. To pinpoint this disease, to define it, in and of itself is something of a labor already.
Still: Lyme disease is a clinical diagnosis, a disease that is transmitted by a tick bite. The disease is caused by a spiral-shaped bacteria (spirochete) called Borrelia burgdorferi. The Lyme spirochete can cause infection of multiple organs and produce a wide range of symptoms. Less than half of Lyme patients recall seeing a tick bite, and less than half also report seeing any rash. (They say the deer tick—which is usually the carrier of Lyme—can present as smaller than a speck of pepper.) The erythema migrans (EM) or “bull’s-eye” rash is considered the main sign of Lyme, but atypical forms of this rash are seen more frequently. Testing is quite flawed; the commonly used ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) screening test is unreliable, missing 35 percent of culture-proven Lyme disease. There are five subspecies of B. burgdorferi, over one hundred strains in the USA, and three hundred strains worldwide. Testing for babesia, anaplasma, ehrlichia, and bartonella (other tick-transmitted organisms) should always be performed as well, as coinfection with these organisms points to probable infection with Lyme and vice versa.
There are multiple stages and progressions of the disease. Stage 1 is called early localized Lyme disease, and it signifies a stage where the bacteria have not yet spread throughout the body; this form of Lyme can be cured with timely antibiotic use. Stage 2 is called early disseminated Lyme disease, and here the bacteria have begun to spread throughout the body. Stages 3 and 4 are often known as chronic and late-stage Lyme disease, and at this point