Lyme disease — also known as neuroborreliosis when it invades the central nervous system — does not discriminate among potential victims. Best-selling literary novelist Amy Tan has suffered from Lyme since 1999. Her disease baffled her doctors at first. She experienced the usual flulike symptoms, rash, and then muscle pain, but as the disease escalated, […]
Controversy over the management of chronic Lyme disease has split the medical community in two. At the national level, one side is led by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA, based in Alexandria, Virginia), a professional association of specialist physicians and researchers whose guidelines for diagnosis and treatment have been adopted by the Centers […]
One night last summer, I was lying in bed reading, my dog asleep against my side. A comfortable silence enveloped us as the slight breezes of the midnight hour moved through the curtains. Suddenly, an intruder cruised through the doorway into the room on silent wings. I jerked the covers up over everything but my […]
On any given day, the aromas of baking sweets and simmering soup seep out her kitchen door, past the henhouse, and up into the rare air of Hancock, New Hampshire. Passersby know what’s happening: Kin is cooking. Again. Kin Schilling is known to her friends as smart, generous, artistic, and innovative — but most of […]
The older I get, the more I crave good, strong help. In this quest, I’ve encountered some frustrations. I once hired a young man to help in the garden, and after an hour or so, I looked out the window and saw him sprawled on the ground. Thinking he had hurt himself or passed out, […]
For four precious weeks in early summer, strawberries by the ton come up out of Maxwell’s strawberry fields, which lie across Cape Elizabeth like random quilt squares. They come by the truckload to the Maxwell farm market, to Maine supermarkets, and into Elsie Maxwell’s kitchen and freezer. Ken and Elsie Maxwell are the fifth generation […]
Winter brings with it an apprehension, a raised expectation. We consult the almanacs and listen to the prognosticators. Never mind that they are often wrong. We always want to know what to expect, and hope we are ready. We expect snow. And plenty of it. My preparations begin in late fall. I remove the screens […]
