In November of 2012 I got a fever. It lasted a week. Then another. Then another. It was a low-grade fever that seemed to correspond with joint pain and fatigue.

I explain the fatigue to folks this way. In Michigan, you get cold nights in the winter. Sometimes -10 degrees. The best thing about the end of a long day is getting under your three blankets and getting warm. Then a thought hits your mind. Shoot. Tomorrow is garbage day. So you force yourself to get up out of bed, put your coat and boots on, and haul the trashcan out to the curb. That's what the fatigue felt like, only it never went away. Every day was the same.

The doctors checked me for malaria, lupus, and Cat Scratch Fever (which I was hoping for). They tested for all the normal cancers as well. Eventually, in the fall of 2014, I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease.

I never remembered a tick bite and never got a rash. But Lyme it was. I subsequently spent the next two years on a rotating wheel of antibiotics, first oral and then IV.

With the fatigue and all that, I wasn't exercising. My doctor told me I needed to move, I needed to exercise, so I started walking 30 minutes a day. I'd bring my phone, take some pictures and eventually bought a camera.

I would have never started down this road without the gift of this pain.